Kenya’s Scorched Earth Removal of Forest’s Indigenous

Kenyan government security forces are forcefully evicting thousands of people, including the indigenous Sengwer tribe, from the Embobut forest in western Kenya by burning homes and possessions in an effort to promote forest conservation, safeguard urban water access and “remove squatters”.

Many Kenyan Children Miss Out on Life-Saving Drugs

Thanks to antiretroviral drugs, HIV-positive children can now live to adulthood. Yet a significant number of children living with HIV in Kenya will die due to delay in receiving anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs), inconsistent use of ARVs or, simply, no ARVs.

The Scramble for Kenya’s Kibera Slum

Controversy continues to brew here over ownership of the land under Kibera slum, one of Africa’s largest.

Kenya’s Excess of Policies Can’t Deal With Climate Change

Kenya is facing its greatest challenge as weather patterns are starting to significantly affect food production. And experts are blaming the low adaptive capacity of the farming sector on an excess of policy and institutional frameworks that are silent on both climate change and agriculture.

Insuring Cows and Goats Improves Kenyan Lives

“That is the sound I love the most in the whole world,” Hussein Ahmed says as the bells tied to his cattle begin clinking as they return home. Ahmed, a pastoralist in Marsabit district in arid and semi-arid northern Kenya, lost all his animals in 2011 during one of the worst droughts in the region for over 60 years.

DRC Conflict Hinders East African Integration

As the majority of East African Community countries signed an agreement paving the way for a single tourist visa in the region from 2014, some believe that Tanzania’s hesitance to agree to this integration is largely due to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

When Poverty Quietly Morphs into Catastrophe

Wambui Karunyu, 72, and her seven-year-old grandson are the only surviving members of their immediate family.  Karunyu’s husband and five children all succumbed to the hardships of living in the semi-arid area of lower Mukurweini district in central Kenya.

Nobel Laureate Fights African Pullout from Global Court

South Africa's Desmond Tutu, the 1984 Nobel Peace prize laureate, has launched a global campaign to stop African nations from abandoning the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC).

Somalis Caught Between Terrorism and a Border Dispute

Somali militia groups are beginning to operate in Kenya’s remote and arid North Eastern Province, an area that borders southern Somalia – a former stronghold of the extremist group Al-Shabaab.

Weakening Al-Shabaab Finds New Aggression

Strong action now expected against the al-Shabaab group may well end up strengthening the group rather than weakening it, local people fear. The extremist group is suspected of involvement in the attack on the Westgate mall in Nairobi.

Nairobi Attack Exposes Flawed U.S. Terror Policies

In the aftermath of the worst terror attack in East Africa in three years, foreign policy scholars here are urging the U.S. government to rethink its counter-terror policy in the region.

Kenya Forces Mount Assault to End Mall Siege

Heavy and sustained gunfire has been heard from the Nairobi mall where the Al-Qaeda-linked Somali Islamist rebel group Al Shabab are holed up, holding an unknown number of civilians hostage.

Kenyans Seek Justice as ICC Case Falters

As Kenya’s deputy president William Ruto and co-accused journalist Joshua Sang resumed their trial for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday, Sept. 17, many in this East African nation were debating if the trial will continue to its end as four more witnesses withdrew from testifying on Sept. 15.

Scarcity Reveals an Inaccessible Excess

For decades Zakayo Ekeno has walked Turkana County’s arid land, herding his livestock, and his father’s before that. Yet nothing about the persistently drought-stricken land in northern Kenya could have given him an indication of the wealth beneath it.

Squatting on Kenya’s Mineral Wealth

Zeinab Mohamed is a 70-year-old squatter in Kwale County, in Kenya’s Coast Province. Like many other Coast Province residents, for decades, Mohamed has lived in what squatters call “floating houses”.

Kenya Embraces Carbon Trading

Mary Itumbi reports from Nairobi that Kenya is taking advantage of carbon trading to contribute towards efforts to address climate change.

Slum Farmers Rise Above the Sewers

Tucked deep in Kenya’s sprawling Kibera slum is the shanty that Alice Atieno calls home. It is just one among many small, badly-lit shacks built close together in this crowded slum where an estimated one million people live on about 400 hectares.

Kenyan Spring Failing to Blossom

Kenyan police are said to be investigating the rise of a group dubbed the March 4th Movement (M4M), which aims to make Kenya ungovernable by recruiting youths to take part in protests, similar to those that saw Egyptians overthrow their president. But politicians and analysts here say they do not foresee the movement capable of creating an East African Spring.

Kenya’s Mothers Shun Free Maternity Health Care

It has been a month since the Kenyan government waived the maternity fee at public health facilities, but Millicent Awino is still one of the many expectant mothers in favour of a home birth.

Kenyans Mobilise Against Taxing the Poor

On a side street in Nairobi’s bustling neighbourhood of Shauri Moyo, Faisal Ngila shouts to street vendors, motorbike taxi drivers and pedestrians. “Do you know taxes are increasing in Kenya?” he asks, handing out flyers urging Kenyans to say “no to Unga (maize flour) tax” by dialling a phone number that will register their signature on a petition.

Girls Take Charge in the Fight to End Female Genital Mutilation

Some girls among the Pokot community in western Kenya are bravely defying what is considered cultural and traditional by refusing to be circumcised. More and more mothers, fathers and the women whose job is to do the cutting are beginning to support these girls’ right to bodily integrity.