A “Year of Eye-Catching Steps Forward” for Renewable Energy

Driven by solar and wind, world investments in renewable energy reversed a two-year dip last year, brushing aside the challenge from sharply lower oil prices and registering a 17 percent leap over the previous year to stand at 270 billion dollars.

Kenya Struggles with Rising Alcoholism

Despite legislative attempts to curb drinking, Kenya is still facing its greatest threat from alcohol abuse. Calamities associated with excessive intoxication – dementia, seizures, liver disease and early death – have done little to deter users.

Sexist Laws Still Thrive Worldwide

A rash of sex discriminatory laws – including the legalisation of polygamy, marital rape, abduction and the justification of violence against women – remains in statute books around the world.

Africa’s Rural Women Must Count in Water Management

More women’s voices are being heard at international platforms to address the post-2015 water agenda, as witnessed at the recently concluded international U.N International Water Conference held from Jan. 15 to 17 in Zaragoza, Spain.

Kenya’s Economy Sees Growth at Top But No ‘Trickle-Down’

David Kamau is a small-scale maize farmer in Nyeri, Central Kenya, some 153 kms from the capital Nairobi. He recently diversified into carrot farming but is still not making a profit.

Renewable Energy: The Untold Story of an African Revolution

Africa is experiencing a revolution towards cleaner energy through renewable energy but the story has hardly been told to the world, says Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

AIDS Response Is Leaving African Men Behind

Mention gender inequality in AIDS and the fact that  more women than men live with HIV pops up. But another, rarely spoken about gendered difference is proving lethal to men with HIV.

Braving Dust storms, Women Plant Seeds of Hope

In the world’s largest refugee complex – the sprawling Dadaab settlement in Kenya’s North Eastern Province – women listen attentively during a business management workshop held at a hospital in one of its newest camps, Ifo 2.

Kenya on the Right Economic Path But Challenges Abound

Each year on Dec. 10, Lucy Mwende and her two children hop aboard a night bus and travel to the white sandy beaches and warm waters of Kenya’s Indian Ocean, some 441 km from the capital, Nairobi.

Middle-Income Kenya Still in Need of Aid

Coffee farmer Gabriel Kimwaki from Nyeri County, in central Kenya, is considering “giving up farming altogether”.

Fossil Fuels Won’t Benefit Africa in Absence of Sound Environmental Policies

Recent discoveries of sizeable natural gas reserves and barrels of oil in a number of African countries — including Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya — have economists hopeful that the continent can boost and diversify its largely agriculture-based economy. 

Warmer Days a Catastrophe in the Making for Kenya’s Pastoralists

Seif Hassan is a pastoralist from Garissa, Northern Kenya, some 380 kilometres outside of the capital, Nairobi. He sells his animals at the Garissa livestock market where, during a good season, pastoralists can sell up to 5,000 animals per week and “it is a cash-making business.” 

Measuring How Climate Change Affects Africa’s Food Security

For the past 40 years Josephine Kakiyi, 55, has been cultivating maize, beans and vegetables on her small plot of land in the remote area of Kwa Vonza, in Kitui County, eastern Kenya.

Kenya’s Ogiek Women Conquer Cultural Barriers to Support their Families

Just two years ago, Mary Ondolo, a 50-year-old mother of nine from Kenya’s marginalised, hunter-gatherer community, the Ogiek, used to live in a grass thatched, mud house. She'd been living there for decades. 

Civil Society Condemns Immunity for Sitting African Leaders Accused of Serious Crimes

Mary Wacu lived in the Rift Valley region for 10 years prior to the 2007/08 post-election violence that rocked Kenya after a disputed general election.

In Saving a Forest, Kenyans Find a Better Quality of Life

When Mercy Ngaruiya first settled in Kasigau in south eastern Kenya a decade ago, she found a depleted forest that was the result of years of tree felling and bush clearing.

One Woman’s Struggle to Find the Right Contraceptive

Beatrice Njeri had just come home from her job as a janitor at a primary school in Nairobi. It was August 2009.

Kenya’s Own ‘Erin Brokovich’ Changes Lives of Girl Survivors of Sexual Abuse

Surrounded by endless rows of green tea plants, Mary carefully picked a leaf and placed it into a basket next to her. It seemed like an ordinary day at work for the 13-year-old girl from Meru, in central Kenya. After work she escaped to the adjacent farm for privacy, but was instead attacked and raped by a middle aged man. 

The Deadly Occupation Attracting Kenya’s Youth

Allan Karanja, 22, is a sand harvester. His job is a complex and arduous one that involves him working in deep pits, equipped only with a shovel, crowbar and no protective gear, as he mines sand. It’s also a deadly occupation.

Creating a Slum Within a Slum

At the eastern edge of Nairobi's Kibera slum, children gather with large yellow jerry cans to collect water dripping out of an exposed pipe. The high-rise grey and beige Soweto East settlement towers above them. A girl lifts the can on top of her head and returns to her family's third floor apartment.

India’s Cut-Rose Sector Pushes Past Barriers