A genealogy of policies on poor and vulnerable children and youth in Kenya

• Published in: Routledge Handbook of Public Policy in Africa pp. 499 - 509
• Main Author: Ngutuku, Elizabeth
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 2022
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: Social Protection Programmes; Concession Agreement; National Action Plans; Independent Schools; Ivory Coast; NTD Control; Supreme Audit Institutions; Vulnerable Children; Young Men; Mau Mau Rebellion; Street Children; IMF's Structural Adjustment Programme; Child Poverty and Vulnerability; Path Dependency, Street Children; HIV/AIDS; Colonial Administration; South African National Civic Organisation; Policy Narratives; Community Drug Distributors; Operation Anvil; Public Engagement; National Aid Plan; Policy Framing; African Development Bank; Productive Safety Net Program; Central African Republic; OVC; Child Headed Household
• ISBN: 0367516217; 9780367516215; 9780367699208; 0367699206
• DOI: 10.4324/9781003143840-51

From a genealogical perspective, this chapter focuses on the changing representations and constructions (policy framing) of the needs and rights of poor and vulnerable children and youth in policies in Kenya. It also examines how diverse knowledge, often normative, is marshalled and entangled in different policymaking and implementation moments. The discussion focuses on how different discourses in different political and historical moments emerged, connected in complex ways with global and contemporary discourses, and contexts in which they continue to thrive. I demonstrate how certain discourses frame specific subject positions and, at the same time, erase or silence other experiences and needs. Similar policies in Southern and Eastern Africa show that policies on the poor and vulnerable child or youth cannot be understood without locating them in these shifting interstices. Thus, constructions have implications for adequately meeting needs of children and youth and influence their identity and citizenship entitlements.