Author: NLM Correspondent

By Yomi Kazeem A new data protection law in Kenya is setting a high standard for the rest of the continent. As the country looks to engender more safeguards in the collection, handling and sharing of data, Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta has approved legislation which complies with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. The new law outlines restrictions on data handling and sharing by government and corporations. Any infringements of the new law will be investigated by an independent office with violators facing two-year prison sentences or fines of up to $29,000. Stringent data protection rules could also be a boon for…

By Luis Francheschi We often forget that colour is irrelevant below the skin, a name is something we don’t choose for ourselves, and economic status can be fleeting. We frequently think that law can resolve societal problems, the problems we have created for ourselves, and which we do not really want to or don’t know how to resolve. Thus, we hide behind the law, and blame the law as a bad manager hides behind company policies to avoid facing a bad, absurd decision. We also fail to recall that law without the spirit and the will to enforce it is…

By Walter Khobe ochieng Kenyans chose to depart from a past of authoritarian rule and unjust societal set up by enacting a new constitution in 2010. The post-2010 dispensation is founded on a bold normative constitutional document that not only aims at regulating and disciplining the distribution of power, the ushering in of a new era of democratic governance and representation, and the definition of human rights, but which also aspires to establish a new political and moral foundation for the Kenyan society. The Constitution vests in Kenyan courts the challenge of implementing these ambitious and transformative constitutional promises. This…

By Yash Pal and Jill-Cottrell Ghai The Kenya judiciary has a heavier responsibility than judiciaries in almost any other country. The public generally associates the judiciary with deciding cases in disputes among the people or between the people and the state. But the judiciary (judges and staff) has other important roles, such as ensuring justice is available to all and, most importantly, that the constitution is observed by all, most critically the other institutions of the state — with whom it is liable to come in conflict periodically. As with other parts of the constitution, we can only understand the…

By Dr Justice Willy Mutunga In 2010 Kenya created a new modern transformative Constitution which replaced both the 1969 Constitution and the former colonial Constitution of 1963. This was the culmination of almost five decades of struggles that sought to fundamentally transform the backward economic, social, political, and cultural developments in the country. The making of the Kenyan 2010 Constitution is a story of ordinary citizens striving and succeeding to reject or overthrow the existing social order and to define a new social, economic, cultural, and political order for themselves. Some have spoken of the new Constitution as representing a…

By Brian Omwenga While conducting fieldwork research on innovation in Africa, I found myself in a boardroom in Botswana, with a group of upcoming tech CEOs. One of the CEOs quipped, “Do you know the Land Rover is an African car?” Looking puzzled, I waited for him to offer further explanation. Surely, we all know that the Land Rover is made and most often assembled in the United Kingdom. “…the Land Rover,” he continued, “needed to come to Africa to understand what off-road means.” There are many who have said that “if it works in Africa, it can work anywhere…

Globally, human rights remain under assault, whether by populist movements desperate to gain power or authoritarian governments eager to maintain it. Technology has opened up new frontiers for curbing people’s ability to express and share dissenting ideas. And broad assaults are underway on institutions like the International Criminal Court, which was established not only to offer recourse for the victims of rights violations, but to establish an international human rights benchmark. Instead, it is being replaced by a dangerous intolerance. Around the world, populist authoritarians have built their movements by demonising minorities. In Brazil, for instance, newly elected President Jair…

Both France and the United States have been vocal critics of China’s state-led infrastructure development model in Africa and the accompanying loans for projects extended by Beijing’s policy banks. Fearful that China is using loans to extend political influence along with the fact that some African countries are taking on too much debt, US and French leaders launched high profile Public-Private-Partnership initiatives they claimed would be more economically sustainable and provide a clear alternative to African countries taking on more Chinese debt. But now both the French and US ventures to build even modest infrastructure projects in Kenya are in…

How strong are the links between the Chinese government and Zimbabwe? The ties between China and Zimbabwe go back decades are very important to understanding this relationship today. Many of Zimbabwe’s senior leaders, including President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Vice President Constantino Chiwenga received, were trained in China back in the early 60s. The president was part of something called the “Crocodile Gang”, a group of militant ZANU officials, who studied Marxism and combat training in China. So, the ties run really deep. And it goes both ways. Robert Mugabe was designated with the title “Old Friend” by the Chinese leadership and that…

By Shadrack Muyesu Banks create money, they don’t lend it. When a bank gives out money, it pretends that you have deposited the money…it is to invent liability…this is how the money supply is created – Prof. Richard Werner Like many big corporations, banks thrive on speculation – except that they control the system or at least benefit from insider knowledge, which isn’t speculation after all. In times of tranquility, banks will push money into the system, bringing down the cost of borrowing in the process and inducing borrowers into more loans. Afterwards they will gradually scale interest rates. This…