Category Archives: Kenya
A few words about Kenya
Guest Post by Danielle Nierenberg and Bernard Pollack, BorderJumpers.org
Our entry begins in Maralal, Kenya, a place mostly known for its wildlife. And as we made the seven hour, bumpy trek from Nairobi—half of it on unpaved roads—we saw our fair share of water buffaloes, rhinos, impala, and giraffes. But we weren’t here to go on safari. We were here to meet with a group of pastoralists—livestock keepers who had agreed to meet with us and talk about the challenges they face.
Although most of these people don’t have access to cable TV or even radios, they do have a good sense of the challenges their fellow livestock keepers face all over Kenya: climate change, conflict over land and water access, and a lack of support from policy makers and leaders. They also understand that the world is changing. They know that many of their children won’t live the same kind of lives that their ancestors lived for centuries. Many will choose to go to the cities, but they said if their children become “landed,†they want them to be able to maintain links to the pastoralist way of life.
During our visit to the ‘big city,†Nairobi, we met a “self help” group of women farmers in Kibera—likely the largest slum in sub-Saharan Africa with a population anywhere between 700,00 and one million—who are raising vegetables on what they call “vertical farms.” But instead of skyscrapers, these farms are in tall sacks, filled with dirt, and the women grow crops in them on different levels by poking holes in the bags and planting seeds.More than 1,000 of their neighbors are growing food in a similar way. During 2007 and 2008 when there was conflict in the slums of Nairobi and no food could come into these areas, most residents didn’t go without because so many of them were growing crops—in sacks, vacant land, or elsewhere.
Kenya: Urban Gardening in Kibera (Nairobi’s largest slums)
[Photo credit: Nourishing The Planet]
In Kerecho, Kenya we met with the Kenya Plantation and Agricultural Workers Union (KPAWU) and the Solidarity Center—an organization affiliated with the AFL-CIO that provides resources to hire organizers, conduct trainings, and offer communications and transportation support. The union, despite having more than 200,000 members in the agriculture sector, has still lost density over the last two decades. Companies are trying whatever they can to cut costs, including implementing child labor, and mechanizing the plucking industry.
But the union, like all of the people and organizations we met in Kenya, is demonstrating its resiliency and fighting back. Despite the challenges it faces, over the past couple months it has grown, with 6,000 tea workers joining, thanks to organizing efforts supported by the Solidarity Center.
- Flower Factory Navasha Kenya
[Photo credit: Nourishing The Planet]
Suggested Books
- Adoption Of Agricultural Innovations By Smallholder Farmers In The Context Of HIV/AIDS: The Case of Tissue-Cultured Banana in Kenya (African Women Leaders in Agriculture and the Environment)
- Beyond the Miracle of the Market: The Political Economy of Agrarian Development in Kenya (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions)
- Kenya (Country Guide)
Other Africa Environment books
Special Needs Education in Africa
One of the main problems in writing about special needs education in Africa is a lack of documentation at all levels. Very few evaluation studies seem to have been done. However, that does not mean that children with special needs are being ignored by educators.
Emma and Dogbeda, students at the Volta School for the Mentally Challenged in Gbi-Kledjo, Volta Region, Ghana. Emma is deaf but has received no concrete diagnosis for her mental condition, and Dogbeda suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) at age three.
[Photo credit: Allison Stillwell under a Creative Commons license]
The education of pupils with special educational needs in Africa
At a conference in Manchester, UK in 2000 a paper was presented by C.E.J. Grol on ‘The Education of Pupils with Special Educational Needs in Africa, looked at within the African context’. The paper is on the conference site (click the link above). This paper should be a good starting point for anyone interested in Special Needs Education in Africa, and the extensive bibliography should be very helpful if you can get a copy of books and papers through inter-university loan.
In this paper Grol critically looked at special needs education projects in Botswana, Kenya, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. Â Grol describes two approaches to special needs education – segregation and inclusion and cites the periodical ‘Special Needs Education’Â published by the Uganda National Institute of Special Education (UNISE), a department of the Makarere University in Kampala.
1. Special Education’ suggests a “special”, segregated approach to the education of pupils with Special Educational Needs; an education in schools and/or institutions for special education only.
2. ‘Special Needs Education’ indicates the education of pupils with SEN within an inclusive environment. This educational approach distinguishes between two types:
2.1. ‘Mainstreaming/ Integration’: an approach by which pupils with SEN are integrated in different ways in normal schools. This approach tends to rely on a relatively small number of ordinary schools being equipped with the resources to admit pupils with SEN.
2.2. ‘Inclusion’: an approach by which all ordinary schools cater for pupils with SEN as well. All schools include pupils with physical, intellectual, social, emotional, linguistic, sensory or other needs.
There is debate about both these options. Some disabilities are easier to accommodate in mainstream schools than others. Africa has a history of inclusion of physical disablement in mainstream schooling and it is not unusual to see children in wheelchairs or on crutches attending mainstream schools. However, the article shows that the Danish educator Kristensen, whilst arguing for inclusion, also makes the argument for segregation in special classes for pupils with particular special needs such as deaf pupils and pupils with severe mental problems, pupils with autism, pupils with profound emotional disturbances and pupils with multiple disabilities.
Grol also covers issues such as the African curriculum, Teachers in Africa and The medium of instruction in Africa. This last point he argues that
Observations have discovered that the formal education medium of instruction is frequently not even the second, but the third or fourth language of a pupil. It might be obvious that language policy actually leads to SEN in Africa.
Grol further discusses African attitudes towards children with disability and develops a diagram which shows the isolation and neglect many children with disabilities face, derived from Hop, M. 1996. Attitudes towards Disabled Children in Botswana: An Action Research into the Attitudes of Students and Batswana in general. Research Project Masters Degree Special Educational Needs. Utrecht: Hogeschool van Utrecht/ Seminarium voor Orthopedagogiek.
The diagram is shown below. I assume that by ‘witchcraft’ Â Grol is referring to ‘traditional religion’ or belief system. Grol makes some rather sweeping statements and generalities in this part of the discussion. He refers to ‘traditional African society’ as if it is homongenous and refers to ‘African religious life’ again as if it was homogenous. The reality is that African society is varied across the continent as is African religious life which includes varieties of so-called World religions and traditional religions. The comments he makes may hold for Botswana, but certainly do not do so across the continent as a whole. Having said that, if we look past the specific Botswanan beliefs and consider more general social constructions and beliefs about disability then the rest of the diagram may be useful. All children have a right to be educated and to be nurtured to reach their potential in life. The barriers to that happening may include societal feelings and behaviours which can result in isolation and lack of integration.
Botswana attitudes towards children with a disability summarised by Grol 2000
An additional resource which may be helpful is: Disability and Social Responses in Some Southern African Nations which is an extensive bibliography. Other bibliographies can be found from the Center for International Rehabilitation Research Information and Exchange Annotated Bibliographies
Suggested Books
Africa IMF Reports : Kenya 2009
IMF Reports for Kenya 2009
Public Information Notice: IMF Executive Board Concludes 2009 Article IV Consultation with Kenya
http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pn/2010/pn1002.htm
IMF Survey: IMF Shocks Loan, Policy Changes Help Kenya’s Recovery
Less than a year after drawing on an emergency IMF loan, Kenya is showing signs of economic recovery, the IMF says in its regular assessment of the country’s economy. Kenya’s loan drawdown allowed the country to close financing gaps that opened up during 2008.
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2010/car010810a.htm
Press Release: Statement at the Conclusion of an IMF Article IV Consultation with Kenya
http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2009/pr09377.htm
Country Report No. 09/225: Kenya: 2004 Article IV Consultation, First Review Under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility, and Requests for Augmentation of Access, Rephasing of the Arrangement, and Waiver of Performance Criteria – Staff Report; Staff Statement; Public Information Notice and Press Release on the Executive Board Discussion; and Statement by the Executive Director for Kenya
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.cfm?sk=23138.0
Country Report No. 09/191: Kenya: Request for Disbursement Under the Rapid-Access Component of the Exogenous Shocks Facility – Staff Report; Staff Supplement; Press Release on the Executive Board Discussion; and Statement by the Executive Director for Kenya
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.cfm?sk=23034.0
Transcript of a Press Conference Call by the International Monetary Fund on “Lending for Africa” [includes Kenya]
http://www.imf.org/external/np/tr/2009/tr060109.htm
Country’s Policy Intentions Documents — Kenya: Letter of Intent, May 15, 2009
http://www.imf.org/External/NP/LOI/2009/ken/051509.pdf
Press Release: IMF Executive Board Approves US$209 Million Disbursement to Kenya Under the Exogenous Shocks Facility
http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2009/pr09191.htm
Press Release: Statement at the Conclusion of an IMF Staff Mission to Kenya
http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2009/pr0977.htm
Country Report No. 09/18: Kenya: Third Review Under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility Arrangement and Request for Waivers of Nonobservance of Performance Criteria – Staff Report; Press Release on the Executive Board Discussion; and Statement by the Executive Director for Kenya
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.cfm?sk=22637.0
To view and print pdf files you need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader which is available at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html.
Suggested Books
- Beyond the Miracle of the Market: The Political Economy of Agrarian Development in Kenya (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions)
- Gender and Economic Growth in Kenya (Directions in Development)
- Kenya (Country Guide)
Africa Music : Umoja, A Collaborative Development Project
UMOJA – Cultural Flying Carpet “South” – is a collaborative development programme and involves the participation of 11 cultural institutions from four different countries: Mozambique, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Norway. Carpet “East” includes Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, the Netherlands and Norway.
Umoja Music Campin Maputo
In September [2009] a 10-day Umoja Cultural Flying Carpet music camp in Maputo was organized with young artists from South Africa, Mozambique and Norway. This programme is the initiative of Norwegian music teachers with funding from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Oslo.
Its stated aims are the fostering of peace and development among nations through arts and culture, the support of art and culture and the development of arts institutions.
The instrument that Umoja developed to achieve these goals was a rotating music camp, which young artists from the participating countries would attend. Action Teams were set up in each participating country to organise and implement programmes. At the camp they perform for each other a national programme of music and dance and then start working in mixed groups to come up with various fusion or crossover performance items.
The cultural exchange programme that took place was also very educative as it mixed the four different countries and produced unique music and dance routines.
Read more at http://www.umojacfc.com/ and also at Chipawo web site
www.chipawo.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=35&Itemid=39
Source: chipawo@mango.zw
Suggested Books
Kenya video : Earthwatch Puts Clean Water on the Map in Africa
People in Kenya‘s semiarid Samburu region face growing water shortages, water quality issues, and conflicts between livestock and wildlife over water. Scientists and volunteers at Earthwatch‘s Samburu Field Center have developed a GIS resource to help the Samburu community cope with water issues and avert public health crises. The Earthwatch Institute has put the following video on YouTube.
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4ch9psMUZg
Kenya : Environmental goods collection and the schooling of children
Environmental goods collection and children’s schooling: evidence from Kenya. S. Wagura; W. Nyangena, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, 2009
This study examines the link between environmental goods collection and children’s schooling in Kenya. It proposes that, as resources becomes more scarce, households will invest more time in collecting them and this will adversely affect the children’s school attendance and performance.
The main findings of the study are:
- there is a positive correlation between resource collection and school attendance
- children’s school attendance and progress is negatively affected by scarcity of natural resources through the increased work that results from scarcity of natural resources
- the effects of resource collection work on school performance were not significant which suggest that performance mostly depends on the child’s ability
- there is a positive relationship between performance and the type of school the child attends
- the presence of women being involved in resource collection work positively increases school attendance
The paper concludes that there is a need to reduce the child’s involvement in resource collection in several ways:
- increasing water supply may reduce the time children spend queuing for water at the source of water
- for the areas with access to village tap, a good solution can be increasing the number of village taps to a short distance from each other which will reduce the time children spend in queuing and travelling
- good management of existing water resources can be encouraged through water conservation measures, which also helps saving children’s time
- to reduce the time children spend to collect firewood, the available alternatives of fuels for cooking should be improved
Via ELDIS
Download a copy
Download a pdf of Environmental goods collection and children’s schooling in Kenya
Suggested Books
New Technology Helps Young African Journalists Make Their Mark
I love writing about training initiatives! It is so exciting to see people changing their own lives.
Since 2006 the Voices of Africa Media Foundation has been training young journalists in Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania and South Africa.
The foundation uses professional training materials and mobile phone technology to train reporters to create objective news in the form of written and video reports.
- Mobile phone camera rivals quality of professional camera
- Barriers between interviewer and subject lowered by using mobile phone instead of camera
- Cultural and language barriers to the media lowered by working with local youth>
- Talented, unemployed youth targeted
- News stories uploaded to training platform via internet or mobile phone (GPRS)
- Building a marketplace for assignments for our reporters through partnerships
- Providing visibility of local news published by talented reporters
- Creating a pool of professional independent community reporters
These young reporters are now making short video reports (on their mobiles) with the guidance of local professionals, interactive learning and online coaching. The best get their work published on publishing platforms such as Africa News.
Olivier Nyirubugara puts their success down to the rise of mobile wireless technology.
Thanks to tremendous progress achieved by the General Packet Radio System (GPRS), the wireless communication protocol, it is now possible for Africans to send articles and images (still and moving) about events taking place in their countries without using a computer and without having traditional internet connection.
You can find out more about Voices of Africa HERE.
You can see a variety of mobile reports on the Voices of Africa website including:
Kenya: Sack vegetables prove efficient
Kenya: How museum guard turned tree planter
Africa Environment : Kenya to begin drilling for oil
Mineral rights are a particular issue in Africa as the search for Geology and Mineral Resources of West Africa
intensifies. Over recent months we’ve seen a lot about China’s investment in Africa (see China into Africa: Trade, Aid, and Influence and the rush for land-grabbing deals by a number of countries including China and India.
African countries do not have the resources to develop mineral fields themselves and are dependent on others to provide the expertise and equipment.
One of the latest Chinese projects is in Kenya where a new attempt is being made to find oil. China is providing the expertise and drilling equipment.
Kenya’s search for oil will intensify with the drilling of oil at Boghal near Isiolo in the next two weeks.
Energy minister Kiraitu Murungi said the government had signed 18 oil production sharing contracts in the last 18 months noting that they were at various stages of exploration. Speaking during the opening of the second South-South meeting on gas and oil management at Windsor Golf and Country Club in Nairobi, the minister said exploration had been stepped up in recent years. He said there were high hopes that the country could strike oil soon.
“For many years, Kenya has been part of the neglected East African exploration frontier. However, in the last five years, we have intensified the search for oil and gas in all our sedimentary basins,†said Mr Murungi.
He said China National Offshore Oil Corporation, which will undertake the drilling, was mobilising the equipment for sinking the well. The minister said the well would be five kilometres deep and is estimated to cost the company $26 million (Sh2 billion). [The Nation 12 Oct 2009]
Read the full article HERE
Intangible Heritage: 2 African traditions in need of safeguarding
Abu Dhabi: 12 elements in need of urgent safeguarding added to UNESCO‘s list of Intangible Heritage
The Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Heritage, chaired by Awadh Ali Saleh Al Musabi (United Arab Emirates – UAE), has identified 12 elements of intangible cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding in eight countries during its current session in Abu Dhabi. Two of them concern African traditions:
- Mali / The Sank̩ mon: collective fishing rite of the Sank̩ РThe Sank̩ mon collective fishing rite takes place in San in the S̩gou region of Mali every second Thursday of the seventh lunar month to commemorate the founding of the town. The rite begins with the sacrifice of roosters, goats and offerings made by village residents to the water spirits of the Sank̩ pond. It is also an expression of local culture through arts and crafts, knowledge and know-how in the fields of fisheries and water resources.
- Kenya / Traditions and practices associated to the Kayas in the sacred forests of the Mijikenda – The Mijikenda include nine Bantu-speaking ethnic groups in the Kaya forests of coastal Kenya. The identity of the Mijikenda is expressed through oral traditions and performing arts related to the sacred forests, which are also sources of valuable medicinal plants. These traditions and practices constitute their codes of ethics and governance systems, and include prayers, oath-taking, burial rites and charms, naming of the newly born, initiations, reconciliations, marriages and coronations. Kayas are fortified settlements whose cultural spaces are indispensable for the enactment of living traditions that underscore the identity, continuity and cohesion of the Mijikenda communities.
Read more at
Suggested Books
Intangible Heritage (Key Issues in Cultural Heritage)
African Intellectual Heritage (African American Studies)
African Social Networking Inspiration: Ida Horner, Ethnic Supplies
I’ve been a follower of Ida Horner on Twitter for a while now and I enjoy following her tweets and her exploits. For me she is an inspiration. She’s a member of Ecademy which is a business social networking site. Today she was the subject of their ‘Social Networking Monday Morning Story‘.  Over the last few years Ida has slowly grown a collaborative network and has become an inspiration for us all. She now helps women to help themselves in Kenya, Madagascar, Tanzania and Uganda.
Read her story HERE.
Medicinal plants boost livelihoods in Africa
Revision of WHO advice on the use of plants
The revision of WHO advice about the use of plants in the pharmaceutical industry is changing livelihoods of African communities and changing attitudes to traditional medicine. There is an excellent resource pack on medicinal plants (pdf download) from the CTA Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Co-operation. One issue that is raised in the resource pack is over-harvesting of natural resources. This will become more of a problem as communities realise the money-making potential of local plants.
There are a number of projects being developed to help communities develop medicinal products from plants. For example:
NAIROBI, 22 April (IRIN) – A project developing medicinal products from plants found in Kakamega forest, western Kenya, has transformed the livelihoods of nearby communities over the past few years, officials of the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) have said.
A powder developed from one of the plants is used as a revitaliser, appetizer and clearer of hangovers: A group of farmers who have domesticated the “highly threatened” medicinal plant, known locally as mkombela (scientific name mondia whytei), used to collect and sell the roots locally.
WHO traditional medicine strategy
WHO traditional medicine strategy 2002-2005
Arabic [pdf 1.3Mb]
Chinese [pdf 17.7Mb]
English [pdf 500kb]
Russian [pdf 952kb]
The main objectives of the WHO Traditional medicine activities are:
- To facilitate integration of traditional medicine into the national health care system by assisting Member States to develop their own national policies on traditional medicine.
- To promote the proper use of traditional medicine by developing and providing international standards, technical guidelines and methodologies.
- To act as a clearing-house to facilitate information exchange in the field of traditional medicine.
The objective of the strategy is to discuss the role of traditional medicine in health care systems, current challenges and opportunities and WHO’s role and strategy for traditional medicine. Many Member States and many of WHO’s partners in traditional medicine (UN agencies, international organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and global and national professional associations) contributed to the Strategy and have expressed their willingness to participate in its implementation. The Strategy was reviewed by the WHO Cabinet in July 2001 and, based on Cabinet comments, has since been revised. The Strategy was printed in January 2002. Since this is at present a working document, the proposed objectives and activities have started to be implemented in early 2002 and the Strategy will be widely disseminated. We understand that the situation in the use of traditional medicine is quite different from country to country and region to region. For example, in AFRO and in WPRO, the Member States consider that traditional medicine is a priority for health care in their regions, but in other regions the role of traditional medicine is treated as complementary or alternative medicine.
For more information contact:
Dr Xiaorui Zhang
Traditional Medicine, Essential Drugs and Medicines Policy (EDM)
WHO/Geneva
Fax: +41 22 791 4730
E-mail: trm@who.int
Some useful books
Handbook of African Medicinal Plants
Medicinal Plants in Tropical West Africa
Medicinal Plants of North Africa (Medicinal Plants of the World ; No. 3)
Medicinal Plants of West Africa
You’ll find some books about African medicinal plants under the African Health link in my  Amazon US Book Store
Land-grabbing in Africa by foreign investors
I’m glad to see that land-grabbing in Africa has become a hot topic since I wrote the analysis below over 6 weeks ago.The BBC have now picked up the issue with a new post Africa investment sparks land grab fears, so I think it is timely to update this post.
There is an  article on land-grabbing from the Independent. This time it is Madagascar where there have been riots over the government selling off a 99 year lease of 1.3 million hectares of farmland (about 1/2 the size of Belgium) to Korea. Korea intends to farm the land – with maize and palm oil and send the produce back to Korea. Food prices in Madagascar are already high and people are struggling live. According to the Independent:
The phenomenon [of land-grabbing] is accelerating at an alarming rate, with an area half the size of Europe’s farmland targeted in just the past six months.
There is a thought-provoking article on IRIN about a massive amount of land-grabbing in Africa. You may also be interested in the analytical map in the article showing ‘land-grabbing in Africa by foreign investors‘. The process seems equivalent to the colonial farming process. Huge ‘farms’ which are really industrial complexes are made up of annexed territories of ‘leased’ land linked to far-off markets. Sounds familiar? Does it really matter? I think it does. It is the size and the manner of the annexation of lands which is definitely worrying both in its neo-colonial overtones and the impact on local people. The annexers argue that the land is idle and unused, but an overview of known situations show that mostly this is not the case. Wasn’t this a colonial argument too? – that local people did not know how to utilise their own land. The leasers involve Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, China and India. In the case of China there has often been an attempt to settle their own people in the leased land rather than using or training local farmers.
From the article here are just a few points:
- Kenya:Â proposal to lease a large chunk of the fertile Tanya River Delta land to Quatar which currently supports 150,000 farming families.
- Mozambique: leased land to China (and resisted the attempt to settle thousands of Chinese agricultural workers).
- Madagascar: Negotiating with South Korea on the lease of 1.5 million hectares led to the conflict that overthrew the government.
- Malawi: China leased land for cotton plant.
- Sudan: received huge foreign investments in agriculture. 75 deals made worth $3.8 billion in the last 8 years. 8 countries are involved.
- Rwanda: announced a new programme to identify “unexploited“ arable land for foreign investors.
- Republic of Congo: announced it would lease 10 million hectares of farmland to individual foreign farmers to boost its food security.
Read the full report from IRIN
Read some more posts on land-grabbing
Suggested Books
The Emergence of Land Markets in Africa: Impacts on Poverty, Equity, and EfficiencyReport of Baseline Study on Land and Property Grabbing(Botswana)
Socioeconomic Change and Land Use in Africa: The Transformation of Property Rights in Maasailand