Kenya’s position in the global peace rankings has weakened as growing insecurity around the Horn of Africa combines with regional conflicts and mounting economic pressures to create a more difficult security environment.
The country fell five places to 132nd in the 2026 Global Peace Index, from position 127 in 2025. Its peace score also declined from 2.392 to 2.447, placing Kenya 33rd out of 44 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), which prepares the index, says the deterioration comes against a backdrop of conflicts that are increasingly linked across the Horn of Africa.
"The Horn of Africa is no longer a set of separate conflicts," the report says.
It says conflicts in Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and South Sudan are increasingly connected through refugee movements, the flow of weapons and fighters, illegal economies, rebel safe areas, cross-border ethnic ties, external backing and proxy warfare.
For Kenya, the security situation in Somalia remains a major concern. AlShabaab, the al-Qaeda-affiliated armed group based in Somalia, continues to carry out attacks across the border into Kenya and Ethiopia.
According to the report, the group raises between $100 million and $150 million annually through charcoal exports, taxation at ports and extortion. This has given it an independent financial base to sustain its activities.
Kenya’s wider role in regional security has also placed it among countries that were involved in a high number of external conflicts between 2020 and 2024. The report lists Kenya alongside the United States, Niger, France and Chad, with each country involved in eight or more external conflicts during the period.
The development reflects a broader increase in international involvement in conflicts. The index says 103 countries were at least partly involved in an external conflict during the five years before the 2026 report, compared with 59 countries between 2003 and 2008.
Kenya’s peace position is measured across three areas: societal safety and security, ongoing domestic and international conflict, and militarisation. The country recorded 2.927 in societal safety and security and 2.358 in ongoing domestic and international conflict.
The decline in Kenya’s ranking comes as sub-Saharan Africa itself records worsening levels of peacefulness. The region deteriorated by 0.2 per cent and remains the third least peaceful of the eight regions measured by the index.
The number of countries from the region among the world’s 20 least peaceful has also increased. Eight are now included, compared with five in 2008.
The conflict in Sudan is highlighted as a major source of instability, with more than 12 million people displaced since the war began. The report says the conflict has affected neighbouring countries through refugee movements, weapons flows, political relationships and economic disruption.
Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Uganda and the Central African Republic are among countries the report says are "believed to have supported the Rapid Support Forces at various points"
South Sudan has taken in more than one million people from Sudan since the conflict started in April 2023. The arrivals include South Sudanese returnees who had previously escaped their own country's conflict. The report also notes that weapons continue to cross the Sudan-South Sudan border.
Elsewhere in the region, Ethiopia’s push to obtain independent access to the Red Sea has added to tensions involving Somalia and Eritrea.
The report says Ethiopia depends on Djibouti for about 95 per cent of its international trade, making access to the Red Sea an issue with both economic and strategic importance.
Kenya could also feel the effects of wider disruptions to trade and supply chains. The report identifies the Iran war as an external shock that could add to existing pressures in the Horn of Africa by disrupting maritime routes as well as food and energy markets.
The risks are particularly important for Kenya because wheat accounts for about 24 per cent of cereal consumption. The report notes that food price inflation in parts of East Africa reached 30 per cent during Red Sea disruptions in 2023.
Fertiliser availability could also come under pressure because Gulf states provide about 45 per cent of the world's sulphur and 50 per cent of its urea.
Any disruption could affect fertiliser supplies during the 2026 planting season, with the impact potentially extending to harvests expected in early 2027.
Kenya is also facing a demanding financial period, with $900 million in external debt maturities due in November and December 2026. The obligations will come alongside reviews under the country's International Monetary Fund programme.
The report describes the combination of debt refinancing, harvest results and IMF reviews during the second half of 2026 as an "unprecedented concentration of risk".
Kenya’s lower position in the 2026 Global Peace Index therefore comes against several pressures developing at the same time. The report links the country’s worsening peace position to the interaction between domestic and regional security concerns, conflicts across the Horn of Africa and economic vulnerabilities rather than to one isolated factor.