A repository containing files related to the Strathmore/ I-Lab Africa Data Hackathon
# DataSprint 2026 — Kenya FinAccess Financial Status Prediction
**Strathmore Data Community × iLab Africa**
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## Table of Contents
1. Project Overview
2. Dataset
3. Environment & Dependencies
4. Methodology
- Data Loading & Inspection
- Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA)
- Preprocessing
- Modelling
- Evaluation
- Feature Importance
5. Key Findings
6. Model Performance
7. Recommendations
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## 1. Project Overview
This project was built for **DataSprint 2026**, a one-week data science challenge organised by the Strathmore Data Community (SDC) in collaboration with iLab Africa. The challenge uses the **2024 FinAccess Household Survey** with the goal being to build a machine learning model that predicts whether a Kenyan adult's financial situation has **Improved**, **Stayed the same**, or **Worsened** compared to the previous year, and to surface the key drivers behind financial deterioration.
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## 2. Dataset
**Source:** Kaggle — Kenya FinAccess Household Survey 2024
**Official report & data manual:** finaccess.knbs.or.ke
**File:** `finaccess2024_datasprint.xlsx` (also available as `.csv`) — **20,871 rows × 28 columns**
### Feature Categories
| Category | Columns |
|----------|---------|
| **Demographics** | `county`, `location_type`, `Sex`, `Age`, `household_size`, `education_level`, `marital_status`, `has_disability` |
| **Livelihood & Income** | `monthly_income`, `experienced_shock` |
| **Mobile & Digital** | `mobile_ownership_1`, `mobile_money_access`, `barriers_mobile_money` |
| **Financial Behaviour** | `Savings_formal`, `Savings_informal`, `Loan_formal`, `Loan_informal`, `defaulted`, `formal_service_use`, `barriers_bank`, `prodsum1` |
| **Financial Health & Literacy** | `fl_score`, `nfhi_11`, `nfhi_12`, `nfhi_13`, `accessto_13k_1month`, `not_difficult` |
| **Target** | `financial_status` |
### Target Class Distribution
| Class | Count | Percentage |
|-------|-------|-----------|
| Worsened | ~10,978 | 52.6% |
| Stayed the same | ~5,614 | 26.9% |
| …