Not for the first time, Kenya has been exposed as the land of ultimate paradoxes, where energy is directed towards achieving a grandiloquent development blueprint by the year 2030, yet little basic effort is made to ensure that a child born today will be alive in the next five years.

Figures from a recent Unicef global survey indicate that Kenya has depressingly made virtually no progress in reducing child mortality by 2015, based on the Millennium Development Goals benchmarks. This places the country â€" which boasts two health ministries for good measure â€" in the unflattering company of Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, and Mauritania.

In contrast, the report notes that child mortality rates in Uganda and Tanzania have dropped remarkably. Ironically, most of these deaths can be avoided through basic preventive and curative measures like proper nutrition, safe drinking water, decent sanitation, vaccination, and breastfeeding.

Indeed, all that talk about achieving Vision 2030 makes little sense if the country cannot guarantee the lives of the children who will, ultimately, make that development dream a reality. That is why it is time for Kenya to go back to the drawing board.