The goal of improving the economic lot of the poorest (the “worst-off”) has become important both in public discussions of the Third World development and in technical discussions among economists. In this essay, I shall focus upon the difficulties of implementing such concerns as they are expressed in two major documents on the economy of Kenya. The first of the two was prepared by the International Labour Office and financed by the United Nations Development Programme (and will henceforth be called the ILO/UNDP Report): ILO/UNDP, Employment, Incomes and Equality (Geneva: ILO, 1972). The second study was prepared by the World Bank as part of its series of country economic reports (and will henceforth be called the World Bank Report): International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Kenya: Into the Second Decade (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press for the World Bank, 1975). That the two reports largely agree on formulation of goals is evidenced by the following lines from the World Bank's 1975 report:
The strategy proposed by this report calls for a relative shift in resource allocation to programs designed to increase production among the mass of small scale enterprises, particularly small scale farmers and African businesses found in the informal sector. … In particular, we feel that this is the only practicable method of dealing with Kenya's two troublesome problems—unemployment and rural poverty—in the foreseeable future. … This report has therefore endorsed the recommendations of other recent Bank reports, as well as [the] ILO/UNDP report, that a larger share of resources be allocated to present and proposed programs to assist small scale African farmers and businessmen.