Developing Country Studies www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-607X (Paper) ISSN 2225-0565 (Online) Vol.4, No.21, 2014 29 Manifestations of Deprivation and Self-Help Coping Strategies to Urban Poverty in Eldoret Municipality, Kenya Joram N. Kareithi Department of Anthropology and Human Ecology, Moi University, P.O Box 3900 Eldoret, Kenya jnkareithi@gmail.com Abstract The preoccupation with rural development and poverty alleviation in Kenya has obscured the plight of the urban poor. The assumption has been that poverty is a rural phenomenon. Although this may appear true given the high incidences of rural poverty the rapid urbanization coupled with economic factors have led to increased concentration of poverty in urban centres in Africa in recent years. Yet, the analysis of the dynamics of urban poverty and alleviation measures continues to be given little attention at the policy level. Consequently, while rural poverty is well understood, information on urban poverty dynamics is largely not understood and at best speculative. Hence, the qualitative nature of urban poverty largely remains unknown and its dimensions unclear. There is now a growing recognition that poverty is multidimensional and has many faces, and that poverty and deprivation results from processes and interactions between social, economic, cultural and political dynamics of a society. A comprehensive understanding of the many faces of poverty and poverty alleviation measures need to extend beyond income to include the way the poor perceive their situation, its causes and remedial measures. This paper discusses the findings of a household study on the perceptions of poverty conducted in Eldoret Municipality Kenya .The study adopted a wide view of urban poverty that focuses on what people see as the causes of their poverty, its various manifestations and the way people respond to their depressed circumstances. Keywords: Urban poverty, self-help groups, Eldoret municipality 1. Background: The Faces of Urban Poverty The assessment of poverty in Kenya (Government of Kenya 1998a) suggested that poverty is largely a rural phenomenon. The report showed that incidence of poverty was 47 per cent in rural areas as compared to 29 per cent in the urban population. The statistics for urban poverty were based on a limited cluster of urban centers and as the report points out, the “magnitude of urban poverty should be regarded with a good deal of precaution” (Government of Kenya, 1998a: 33). This is hardly surprising given that overall, urban poverty has received little attention in Africa generally as it is assumed to be a temporary phenomenon. The assumption is that Africans who become destitute in urban centers have the option to repatriate to rural homes where they have a piece of land and relatives to take care of their social security needs (Dhemba 1999:8). This masks the extent and nature of urban poverty. While there are strong linkages and relationships between the urban and rural residents in Africa, presently, urban residents do not necessarily have claims to land and property in a rural home although they may have relatives there. In addition, the poor performance of the agricultural sector and the increased sub- division of land into small parcels have led to a weak rural economy. Poverty bred in rural areas is pushed to the urban centers through rural-urban migration as people move to look for better opportunities. Projections show that the urban poor will exceed the rural poor in the 21 st century, leading to ‘urbanization of poverty’ (World Bank 1996a; Wratten 1995:11).In Kenya projections indicate that urban poverty may represent almost 50% of the total poverty by 2020 (Oxfam 2009). Evidence of extreme urban poverty is visible in the cities of the developing countries manifested in increased number of people sleeping in the open pavements, beggars, street children and street families all driven to the streets by poverty. The concern for urban poverty is therefore an urgent matter given that more people will be living in cities than in rural areas in the 21 st century (Habitat 1996), which will compound the problem in the absence of policies to tackle the issue. Urban poverty has afflicted people in Africa for many centuries but little has been done to mitigate the problem. The view of the African elites and the authorities has been that such people should return to the rural areas where they will be gainfully employed in farming. These perceptions are tied to the historical evolution of urbanization in Africa. The African cities were historically regarded as bases for administrative and commercial activities rather than places for permanent settlement (Obudho and Obudho 1992:153), hence, were viewed as places where people go to work temporarily and return to the rural place of permanent residence and comfort. This view still persists today. This unsympathetic reaction is driven by an underlying attitude that poverty is a result of people’s failure to ‘work’ and therefore is responsible for their own misfortunes. This disregard of the urban poor is to be found in many parts of Africa. In particular, street children, street families and beggars are occasionally cleared off the streets into police cells because they are viewed as public nuisance, while informal dwellings for the poor are demolished to create room for development of housing for the better-off. The 1980’s/1990’s were a period of ‘urban crisis’ in which the general quality of urban life in Africa declined significantly and poverty deepened (Moser 1997, Moser and Holland 1997, Habitat 1996, Dhemba 1999). The