[1] http://www.salaryexplorer.com/salary-survey.php?loc=111&loct...
[2] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=80%2C000+KES+in+usd&t=osx&ia=curre...
Edit: Source [1] seems to be unreliable. See below comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17013632. So while the number is wrong, it does seem that this UBI is still targeting the poor.
Even better, there's really two types of BI going on here. One is as a mechanism for poverty alleviation, by getting capital to people who have none. Not just "not much", but none. The other is as a solution to the as-yet mostly future problem of the work force being automated out of existence in every industry that people below a certain IQ threshold can work productively in. Expect those to be conflated freely, even though in my opinion they're two different problems. (If you squint really hard, yes, they blur together, but don't ignore the fact that you're squinting.)
https://qz.com/635952/kenyas-goal-of-being-an-upper-middle-i...
Kenya's GDP per capita was around $1143 or less than $100 per month in 2016. "The average monthly wage in Kenya is 6,498 shillings ($76).", according to Reuters in 2013.
https://tradingeconomics.com/kenya/gdp-per-capita
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kenya-reform-idUSBRE94R0M...
This means that the basic income ($22.5 per month or ~20-30% of national median salary) to be provided to Kenyans should account for a substantial part of their income and the experiment could become a basis for an analysis of basic income effects in certain communities.
Centuries of human history shows that most people choose not to be poor, if at all possible. Many go to great lengths to avoid it.
And it's not just “poor vs. not poor”; a substantial share of the people who have the capacity to be rich without much effort expend additional effort to be more rich, if there are opportunities to do so.
Therefore I highly believe also other people would adapt this way given a real chance.
If instead they gave $40k / year to people in the US, they could only fund 625 person-years. So this design would limit the ability to predict how UBI would work in the US, but 1) provides help to those who need it most and 2) maximizes your sample size