Make Isiolo the capital city. Besides being geographically central, the town has space for expansion and that would open up the north to commerce and settlement. It is the best chance to reduce the pressure on land along the Northern Transport Corridor, opening the region up to rapid investment and helping to fully utilise the new Lapsset corridor. The Elephant in conversation with Darius Okolla, an economist, writer and curator at The Elephant.
As the August 2022 elections approach, we suggest that not only will they be relatively peaceful but also that Kenya’s history of large-scale political violence may be a thing of the past.
The patriarchy’s continued enforcement of the practice of Female Genital Mutilation has transformed Somali women into the “living dead”.
Being from the Ethiopian side of the border, travelling and getting to know my people on the Kenyan side has brought me back down to earth regarding the way I have previously viewed the Borana Oromo.
Pastoralists and other marginalized communities need to closely scrutinize the politics and programmes of the election candidates that are after their vote.
We are entering that season of political recklessness that is expressed in the language of violence against the background of a merger uniting two formerly implacable political foes.
The mushrooming of community radio stations and citizen journalism in Northern Kenya provides a far more nuanced and complex view of the lives in Northern Kenya, thus, providing an alternative framing. Since they use the indigenous language, community radios have emerged as the most reliable sources of information about the region. The Elephant in conversation with Yusuf Ibrahim, a strategic communications consultant.
Place, Identity and National Imagination in Post-Katiba Kenya explores the ever-present issue of Kenyan identity from a spatial perspective and focuses on the implications of Northern Kenya as a site of negotiating and re-imagining new possibilities for project Kenya. The Elephant in conversation with Abdullahi Boru, Senior Analyst and Northern Kenya curator for The Elephant.
The fuel shortage has returned to haunt motorists as uncertainties over the State-backed subsidy ahead of the monthly review of pump prices persist. Beyond the rhetoric, Kwame Owino, explains what is ailing Kenya's petroleum sector. The Elephant in conversation with Kwame Owino, Chief Executive Officer of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA-Kenya), a Nairobi-based think tank.
Garret Hardin’s ‘tragedy of the commons’ thesis published in 1968, became a ‘'masterpiece" upon which environmental and development policies were formulated in the 1970s and 1980s. Pastoralist groups were on the receiving end of some of the policies, including discarding indigenous environmental methods. The Ekwar System in Turkana is seen as optimal for taking care of the trees in Turkana. The Elephant in conversation with Joseph Kalapata, a manager at the Forum for Protection of Pastoralist Development.
Grzimek’s racist vision of African conservation—without Africans—remains embedded in much of conservation, and is ultimately destructive of both the environment and people.
The starkly different responses of the international community towards the crises in Tigray and Ukraine show us that the world must strive towards an international order that works for all.