How Ideas Frame the Politics and Policymaking Process of Care in Kenya: Examining through a Transformative Social Policy Lens

Re-entering policy discussions and debates within governments, civil society and international organizations in Africa following the effects of COVID-19 is the issue of managing the crisis of care. Previous attempts brought attention to the issue but ways of management of care failed to gain traction within policy spaces. The renaissance of debates in several countries now seem better coordinated and focussed, with an array of actors involved in policy discussions. Ideas frame and shape policy leading to different outcomes with ideational factors playing a key role in how policies emerge and which policy prescriptions are adopted. In Kenya, the government has developed the Draft National Policy on Care awaiting presidential assertion. This paper examines how ideational factors have shaped the draft policy with the guiding question as: how have ideas influenced and shaped policymaking and approaches of care in Kenya? Drawing from empirical research involving various stakeholders, and a review of documents I argue that like other social policymaking processes in Kenya the centre of gravity and generation of ideas remains international organizations. This dominance has led to policy resilience and stability at the paradigmatic level. The result is the persistence of neoliberal principles in framing care and its management. I argue that this framing is inadequate at resolving the crisis of care and instead transformative social policy principles and feminist perspectives are better suited at addressing care in Kenya and other countries with similar contexts.