Author: NLM Correspondent

By Dan Banik and Nikolai Hegertun There are growing signs that the aid relationship between the Global South and the Global North is changing fast. Many traditional Western donors are re-evaluating the role of aid while keeping a close eye on their own national interests. These changes may not be all bad. Since the turn of the century, aid policies have become both complex and fragmented. Four major international development policies and goal-setting projects were launched in 2015 alone. These are the Paris Agreement, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on Financing for Development, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The global…

By Kathleen Klaus Conversations in Kenya have started around the upcoming 2022 presidential elections. Elections in Kenya tend to be highly contentious and there is often concern that, in some places, violence may erupt. Political violence has a long history in Kenya. It extends back to the British colonial state’s use of violence to control people, expropriate land, and suppress dissent. In independent Kenya, the regimes of Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi continued to use violence as a way to control land and intimidate political rivals. With the reintroduction of multi-party elections in 1992, politicians used violence to shape electoral outcomes. In the 1992 presidential elections, around 1,200…

By Kibe Mungai The Constitution 2010, for which nearly 70 percent of Kenyans voted to adopt on August 4, 2010, did not come on a silver platter but after a long struggle, during which thousands of people lost lives, limb, property and suffered State terror and humiliation. And so in the wake of the promulgation of the Constitution on 27th August, 2010 President Mwai Kibaki rightly observed:- “Many Kenyans have invested heavily over the years towards the realization of this constitution. Some paid the ultimate price as they sought freedom for their compatriots. Every Kenyan who contributed their views to…

By Ndung’u Wainaina Since attaining independence in 1963, Kenya has undergone a constitutional crisis that has lasted over five decades. The rule of law has been sabotaged, subverted, incapacitated, undermined and alienated at every turn. Kenya’s post-colonial history was an era – it can be argued that it still is – of dictatorship and pervasive, rampant, malevolent, endemic corruption. The colonial administration reflected orders from Britain rather than consensus obtained from the local community leaders. This form of indirect rule kept governance at a distance, thereby centralizing, racializing and ethnicizing power. The British administrative system was adopted, along with copy-pasted laws,…

In the largest mobilization of private resources to protect Africa’s frontline health workers from COVID-19, a new 30-member coalition last month announced it has begun delivering nearly 60 million pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE) to countries across sub-Saharan Africa in the initiative’s first round. The COVID-19 Action Fund for Africa (CAFA) is working in partnership with Ministries of Health to meet the essential PPE needs (including surgical masks, gloves, eye protection and more) of up to one million community health workers serving over 400 million people during the COVID-19 pandemic.  CAFA is anchored by a $10 million (Sh1 billion) commitment from…

One in three schoolchildren across the world have been unable to access remote learning during coronavirus school closures, the UN children’s agency said in August, warning of a “global education emergency”. Nearly 1.5 billion children were affected by school closures as countries locked down to prevent the disease from spreading, UNICEF said in a report. Yet at least one in three students have had no way of continuing their education at home. “For at least 463 million children whose schools closed due to COVID-19, there was no such a thing as remote learning,” said UNICEF’s Executive Director Henrietta Fore in…

Lesgislators want the elusive two-thirds gender requirement on elective posts deleted through a referendum, arguing it is impossible to attain. The lawmakers argue that it is not possible to force Kenyans to vote a woman candidate in a democratic exercise, and that the requirement should be deleted and only observed in appointive positions. Constitution Implementation Oversight Committee Chairman Jeremiah Kioni said the two-thirds gender rule was only agreed by politicians during the drafting of the 2010 Constitution to stabilise the country and cool tempers. “There is none of the formulas that have a solution to the implementation of this rule…

By Prof John Harbeson For the last fifteen years, democracy has been in decline worldwide in the opinion of most close observers of democratic practice. With the end of the Cold War until about 2005, there occurred a rising arc of democratic progress, most notably in the Global South countries. In sub-Saharan Africa, eastern Europe and elsewhere, dictators were no longer as coddled and propped up by the principal Cold War adversaries, the United States and the Soviet Union. A younger generation, frustrated by corruption and economic malaise in their countries created groundswells of support for political democracy with active…

It is possible for Kenya to move forward, but citizens must exercise their constitutional rights and the right to self-determination to enforce a free and equal society. Stories of democracy and sustainability can be told in many other ways too; ones that connect much more deeply with human values. Consider this tale from India: Ten years ago, sought to change their social and political fortunes when they promulgated a new Constitution. In their new governance contract, they recalibrated governance, to restore the power of the people, ensure dignity for all through a comprehensive human rights Bill, and to hold governments…

Bearing in mind that in all counties over 70 per cent of the people can be categorized as poor, it is not easy to justify a retention of the existing revenue sharing formula