The aim of this research study was to determine the capacity of Community Based Organizations (CBO) in provision of health insurance to the urban poor. This was a descriptive survey. It focused on identifying the presence of factors that influence the success of Community Based Health Insurance (CBHI) in the CBOs studied. The study was conducted within the sprawling Kibera slums of Nairobi and was based on 91 CBOs as registered by the Kibera Division Community Development Assistant (2007). The respondents were drawn from 31 CBOs sampled from the 91 CBOs out of whom only one CBO failed to return the questionnaire delivered to them by the researcher. A structured questionnaire was used to collect the relevant data which was used to summarize the findings and draw conclusions. The rate of response was impressive and data collected was used to draw meaningful conclusions and recommendations. The study concluded that the CBOs within Kibera Slums possess the factors that influence the success of CBHI. Members of some of the CBOs were found to have health insurance cover mostly through micro finance organizations such as savings and credit societies where individual CBOs join as corporate members to enhance the saving capacity and accessibility to credit facilities. All individual CBO studied, however, faced the problem of lack of adequate volume of exposure and acknowledged financial constraints and poverty as the major impediments to their growth. The level of members contributions for at least two third of the CBOs was adequate to sustain CBHI. The study recommends that the CBOs cooperate with each other by coming together to form larger CBOs that would have adequate volumes or join the conglomeration of CBOs that are already offering CBHI besides other activities. Deliberate measures also have to be taken to assist the CBOs alleviate poverty among other risk control measures while the government and other agents should put more effort in improving the health facilities in the slums and partner with CBOs in health financing.

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