7 min read. A never-ending cycle of killing and looting has left South Sudan fragile and impoverished. Moreover, a kleptocratic class of politicians and generals at the top with deep ties to “international partners” has been benefitting from the conflict, which could explain why Africa’s youngest nation remains in a permanent state of political instability.
7 min read. What India’s Prime Minister forgets – and what the mass protests in Indian cities demonstrate – is that India’s secularist democracy has survived more than 70 years because Indians decided that religion was too personal and too precious to be left to the whims of the state.
8 min read. The former president of the African Development Bank, Donald Kaberuka, has dismissed as “nonsensical” any suggestion that Africa may have over-borrowed, saying instead that with better debt management and higher domestic revenue mobilisation, the continent can take on more debt. But Kaberuka fails to make the link between the increased borrowing and the revenue problem.
9 min read. During the political standoff that followed the 2017 presidential election, the National Super Alliance (NASA) espoused a road map that would lead to a political settlement through the formation of a transitional government that would have spearheaded the process of building a national consensus on political reforms. But in place of a Jubilee-NASA institutional engagement came the Handshake, a commitment by Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga in their personal capacities, which has culminated in the recently released Building Bridges Initiative Report, an underwhelming document that underscores the failure of the two principals to deliver the new political...
8 min read. Rising rape cases in Indian cities have sparked women’s movements that are claiming public spaces for themselves and defying a culture that says that a woman’s place is in the home. RASNA WARAH examines how gender-sensitive urban planning and design can deter potential rapists.
8 min read. Six years of fiscal profligacy have finally caught up with the Jubilee administration. Money is short, it now admits, and the begging bowl is out. The IMF has been in town and will be back again. But the cure could be worse than the disease as Jubilee prepares to don an IMF straightjacket for the remainder of its term.
7 min read. When a seasoned Senator tells young people not to look to the National Assembly, the Executive or the Judiciary for answers to the spiraling debt, the closure of businesses, the extra-judicial killings of young people and the run-away unemployment, where else should they look?
5 min read. The Building Bridges Initiative is an ill-disguised attempt at social engineering, a “fix the people” approach to Kenya’s problems designed to veil ours eyes from the massive looting and the privatisation of public institutions. It is meant to dissuade us from expecting social and public solutions to our challenges as a country and to instead shoulder the blame and provide for ourselves the solutions to our problems. It is a declaration of war by the political class against the people of Kenya.
8 min read. In a country where digital technology and personal data are routinely abused by unscrupulous officials and politicians, what kind of confidentiality can Kenyans expect from the new law on data protection? Is the law a genuine attempt at protecting Kenyans’ privacy, or is it for the benefit of credit card companies and banks associated with the Huduma Namba?
6 min read. Despite the positive outcomes of the recent Kibra parliamentary by-election, the poll confirmed that the country is just as polarised as it was before the 2018 “handshake”. The rabid political rhetoric, the ethnic mobilisation, the violence and allegations of bribery, were not any different from those witnessed during the 2017 election. Kibra laid bare the fractures within the ruling Jubilee Party and confirmed the collapse of NASA. Rather than bridging the political differences in the country, the “handshake” has deepened them. This does not augur well for the country, particularly in these difficult economic times.
