8 min read. Since independence the Kenyan state has decided who is an “insider” and who is an “outsider” and which territorial spaces they should occupy. This has led to the politics of exclusion and marginalization based on geographical boundaries, religion or ethnic identity. These second-class citizens are then forced to use personalised patronage networks to gain access to their rights as citizens, such as the right to an ID or a passport. Will the Huduma number foster this reality?
10 min read. As the Museveni government rolled out plans to revive Uganda Airlines, was the president’s brother-in-law caught with his hands in the cookie jar? MARY SERUMAGA celebrates a rare victory for a vigilant public.
11 min read. The government’s recent announcement to close the Dadaab refugee camp, also known as Kenya’s fourth largest city, is motivated by all the wrong reasons, is a breach of international law and could, once again, very well lead to the ratcheting up of terror attacks in Kenya.
9 min read. A proposed mobile phone lending platform called Wezesha and described as a “collaborative initiative to bridge the access to credit by micro and small enterprises”, will be managed by five banks under the leadership of the Kenyatta Family-owned Commercial Bank of Africa. The Huduma Number initiative is central to the new scheme, and could explain the government’s insistence on rolling out biometric Identity Cards.
8 min read. If both Parliament and these nascent movements fail to forestall the efforts of the ‘system’, it is certain to use the Chebukati report, the boundary demarcation process, the population census and the Building Bridges Initiative to entrench itself and it will be interesting to see how the ‘hustlers’ respond to this direct challenge to their ‘turn to eat’.
9 min read. Famine in Turkana and other Kenyan counties may not have yet caught the attention of the international media, but domestic dissatisfaction with the famine response may force the government to alter its food security policies. The more likely scenario, however, is that this government will, like most Kenyans, pray for the rains, and hope that the food crisis will go away all on its own.
8 min read. To budget anything from a quarter to a third of the country’s annual GDP for stealing — to then borrow it, steal it, feign outrage, compromise parliament, and diffuse public anger with ineffectual corruption investigations, again and again and again - defies corruption. It is a crime against humanity.
12 min read. Why has the UK establishment so farcically mismanaged Brexit? The answer has eluded her politicians because it lies deep within a political system no longer fit for current purpose.
10 min read. Two decades ago, a group of eighty Kenyans spent the better part of two years thinking about where the country was headed. The product of this effort was Kenya at the Crossroads: Scenarios for our Future. Where is the country now and where is it headed?
15 min read. Unserved by policy makers whose grand energy priorities lay elsewhere, 600 million rural Africans for decades lay off-grid. When new technologies and global investment arrived, this emerging market became the site of competition and fantasy between indigenous solar technology traders and a white saviour industry backed by billionaire philanthropy investors.
