Access to Insurance and Performance of Cash-Based Refugee Livelihood Programmes: Evidence from the Bamba Chakula Programme in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya

This study examines the influence of access to insurance on the performance of the Bamba Chakula cash based refugee livelihood programme in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Turkana County, Kenya. Guided by Sen's Capability Approach and the Theory of Change, the study adopted a cross-sectional survey research design and analysed data from a stratified random sample of 304 respondents out of a sample size of 370 refugee beneficiaries, traders, and programme officials. Data were analysed descriptively and inferentially using Pearson's product-moment correlation and simple linear regression with the help of SPSS version 27. The descriptive results show that access to insurance among Bamba Chakula beneficiaries is generally low (composite mean = 1.83, SD = 0.843), constrained chiefly by unaffordable premiums, low awareness, weak trust in providers, and the absence of tailored products for informalsector and low-income households. Despite this low uptake, correlation analysis revealed a strong, positive, and statistically significant relationship between access to insurance and programme performance (r = 0.753, p = 0.001), while regression analysis showed that access to insurance explained 56.7 percent of the variance in programme performance (R² = 0.567, F(1,302) = 395.960, p = 0.001), leading to rejection of the null hypothesis. The study concludes that access to insurance, though currently underdeveloped, is one of the strongest levers available for strengthening the resilience and sustainability of cash-based refugee livelihood interventions. The study recommends that humanitarian agencies, insurers, and mobile-money providers jointly design affordable, mobile-integrated micro-insurance products covering health, assets, and livelihoods, supported by targeted awareness campaigns among refugee populations. Keywords: Access to Insurance; Financial Inclusion; Cash-Based Transfers; Refugee Livelihoods; Bamba Chakula