“People are dying from hunger, children are not going to school,” David Ngooma, a resident from Kibera, Kenya’s biggest slum, told Jacobin. “We don’t see any help from the government.” On top of that, according to Ngooma, the president is taxing the poorest Kenyans too much. This pain is a direct result of International Monetary Fund (IMF) policy recommendations that have been forced on the country — repeating recommendations that were implemented with disastrous results in the 1990s.

Kenya finds itself once again grappling with a dual crisis of soaring living costs and mounting debt, both exacerbated by outdated IMF policies. Over the last year, the price of sugar, a staple in Kenyan households, has risen by 32 percent, while the price of vegetables like carrots and onions has risen by more than 50 percent. The price of maize flour, another Kenyan staple, has also doubled in the last two years.