Denmark continues to be among the countries which contribute the highest share of GDP to development assistance, nearly 1%. Denmark's global development assistance in 2002 amounts to 12.5 billion DKK (1.5 billion USD). The acronym, DANIDA stands for Danish International Development Assistance. Danish development assistance is given on a grant basis.

The overall objective of Danish development assistance is to promote sustainable development through poverty-oriented economic growth. Danish development assistance focuses on assisting the poor through critical investments in the social sectors, development of infrastructure and the private sector.

Equal participation of men and women in the development process, protection of the environment, promotion of peoples' participation, human rights and democratisation are cross-cutting issues in Danish development assistance.

The current Danish development assistance to Kenya includes projects in the areas of human rights and good governance, agriculture, micro enterprise, micro finance, roads, health and nutrition. Except for projects in human rights and micro finance, Danish project support is implemented in cooperation with relevant Government of Kenya authorities at provincial and district levels.

The majority of the ongoing projects are implemented in Kitui and Makueni districts in the Eastern Province and in the districts of the Coast Province, which are among the poorest in Kenya. The geographical focus facilitates cooperation across sectors and ensures cost-effective supervision of the projects.

Kenya was incorporated in the Danida Private Sector Programme in 2002. Assistance is provided to support the transfer of technology from the Danish private sector to business enterprises in the private sector in Kenya (see this).

During the last 10years, Denmark has underlined the need for improvement with regards to good governance and democratisation. The elections on 27th December 2002 and the change of government have been welcomed by the danish government as an important step forward. The danish government has therefore increased the country frame in 2003 from 700 to 850 milliom KES. It is hoped that the Government of Kenya will combat corruption which is a condition to improved cooperation between Denmark and Kenya.