International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) kicked off a six-day workshop on September 19, 2022 in Nakuru, Kenya. The workshop aimed to share capacity on Social Accounting Matrices (SAMs), and the standardized toolkit for building SAM. This forms part of Kenya’s Capacity Sharing Workshops Series under the CGIAR Initiatives on National Policies and Strategies (NPS), and Foresight.
The workshop brought together 13 participants from key national partners involved in the NPS and Foresight activities in Kenya. These are Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis(KIPPRA) and Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS). The training was facilitated by IFPRI’s Senior Scientist Josee Randriamamonjy, based in Washington, D.C.; Juneweenex Mbuthia and Lensa Omune, Research Officers based in Nairobi, Kenya office.
The training aimed to introduce and share capacity with key partners on SAM concepts, the use of SAM as a comprehensive national accounting database for economywide analysis, and investment and policy prioritization setting. In addition, the participants were walked through SAM building process using IFPRI led standardized framework – the Nexus SAM toolkit.
Kicking off the first day were opening remarks from Dr. Channing Arndt, Senior Director for Systems Transformation Strategies, CGIAR, Dr. Clemens Breisinger, National Policies and Strategies (NPS) Initiative Lead and IFPRI’s Kenya Country Program Leader, Dr. Rose Ngugi, KIPPRA’s Executive Director, and Mr. Benjamin Muchiri, Senior Manager, Macroeconomics Statistics, KNBS. The speakers highlighted the importance and relevance of the Social Accounting Matrix for policy and investment analysis both at national and county level, and the need for continuous updating of the SAM using the most recent data. The joint effort amongst the key institutions was highly praised, with hopes to build not only a National SAM, but also a Regionalized SAM to cater to needs at the county level.
During the six-day workshop, participants were trained on concepts such as SAM structure and properties, data sources requirements, Nexus SAM’s classification system, Supply and Use Tables (SUTs), Macro SAM and disaggregation of SAM using SUTs, household and labour force surveys, among other data sources. The training also incorporated exercises and discussions on Macro SAM building, SAM based models and multiplier analysis.
A key highlight in all closing remarks, delivered by Dr. Clemens Breisinger, Dr. Rose Ngugi and Mr. Collins Omondi-Director, was the need to institutionalize building and updating of the Social Accounting Matrix (SAM). KNBS and KIPPRA also emphasized their commitment to have National and Regionalized SAMs for evidence-based decision-making at the levels of both national and county government. The workshop’s participants will, therefore, continue exploring the toolkit and validate the datasets, available internally, at the respective institutions.
A subsequent workshop, in the Capacity Sharing Workshops Series, will take place in November 2022, to update the toolkit using the most recent available datasets. This Activity is expected to culminate in joint publication of the 2019 Kenya SAM.