Happy Counties in Kenya 2020

Makueni county tops the list of the happiest counties in Kenya in the recently released survey by Infotrack.

Makueni leads with an index of 64.4 percent in county happiness followed by 62.4 percent of West Pokot, Machakos at 62.1 and Bomet county at 61.8 percent. This poll was taken between November and December 2019 to January 2020

 A county within the coastal region; Kwale closes the list of the top five counties ranked to be happy.Other counties that make the top ten list include, Elgeyo Marakwet,Marsabit, Uasin Gishu , Kericho and Mandera. Kisumu county took position 25, Mombasa 44 and Nairobi almost being third last at position 45/47 counties.

 Such a survey came after a survey done by the United Nations that put among Kenya the happiest countries in the Africa. In the world happiness report of 2020 dated March, the UN ranked Kenya as the happiest country in East and Central Africa, where Kenyans were shown as happier and more hopeful than citizens from other countries that neighboured it.

In the research to find which county was happy and unhappy counties as released on Sunday 9^th, the most unhappy people were found to come from five counties that included Taita Taveta,Trans Zoia, Nairobi Mombasa  and Siaya counties which all scored approximately 52.85% and below.

Residents from the happiest counties interrogated attributed their happiness to positive changes in their socio-natural environments. The other drive to happiness in those happy counties included peace, availability of education, quality and affordable health care, food security, proper infrastructure, good governance and equitable development.

 The level of happiness of Kenyans is reported to have gone down by 10% from 67% in 2015 to 57% in 2020. The method of data collection was on computer assisted telephone calls and conversations with which each county was allocated 600 respondents and approximate error of +-4 margin with a 95% degree of confidence.

In terms of regions the eastern part of Kenya led, followed by the rift valley, north eastern then central, western. Nyanza  coast and Nairobi regions took the bottom three.

 The infotrack findings came four months after Kenya was ranked position 121out of 156 in the world happiness report with a score of 4.58 out of apoosible score of 10. Kenya was followed closed by Uganda ata position  126, Tanzania 148, Rwanda 150 and south sudan 152 which was ranked the worst in the region.