"A government without true representation of women is incomplete, undemocratic and unaccountable," stressed Dr. Jacinta Muteshi, Chair of the Kenyan National Commission on Gender and Development. She was speaking at the High-Level Seminar on Gender and Transformational Leadership in Politics: Re-Positioning Women's Agenda for Effective Participation in Elective Politics in 2007, held on 20 April 2007 in Nairobi.

The Kenya Government is facing renewed pressure to employ more teachers and increase their salaries to improve education standards. Lobby groups from the education sector yesterday said the Government should also plan for an overwhelming demand for secondary education due to the high number of pupils benefiting from free primary education.

When Dr Bitange Ndemo, Information and Communication Permanent Secretary (PS) asked Collin Bruce and his team to visit Eastlands in Nairobi, everybody was eager. Eager because the PS had sang praises about Kimathi Information Centre (KIC) and how it had used Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) to uplift the lives of the youth in the area.

Kenya Forestry Service plans to rehabilitate an approximate 2,700 hectares of indigenous forests through an ambitious afforestation programme.The campaign targets water catchment areas within Mount Kenya region, Aberdares, Mau Forest, Cherang’any Hills, Mt Elgon and Western Kenya region, which have in the past been destroyed by illegal loggers.

Fears are high among Kenyan farmers that a new trade regime following a forthcoming deal between developing countries and the European Union (EU) may drive them deeper into poverty. The deal, expected to kick in at the beginning of next year, is one of six economic partnership agreements (EPAs) between the EU and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.

ILRI seeks to recruit a Project Leader to lead its multi-disciplinary project on Livestock Systems Evolution within Targeting Research & Developing Opportunities Theme. This research area examines socio-economic and natural resource drivers of livestock system evolution as a basis for setting priorities and targeting livestock-based interventions to alleviate poverty while protecting the environment. The application deadline is 11th May 2007.

PATH (Program for Appropriate Technology in Health) is an internationally recognized non-profit NGO involved in the development, implementation and transfer of health technologies. PATH seeks to recruit a mature, proactive and self motivated person to fill the Office Operations Manager position for the APHIA II Western project in Kakamega, western Kenya. Deadline for applications is 30 April 2007.

CARE Kenya is looking for an ideal candidate to fill the position of Programme Coordinator for its North Eastern Province Programme (NEP-P) based in Dadaab, Garissa District. Application deadline: 27th April 2007.

Merlin IEC seeks to recruit a field officer who will design and organise IEC/BCC materials including newsletter publication. S/he will also be responsible for Merlin IEC material stock in addition to supporting IEC campaigns in the field, focusing on malaria. Closing date: 20th April 2007.

The University of Pittsburgh, in collaboration with KEMRI has an on-going research study at the Siaya District Hospital and the surrounding community that is investigating severe malarial anaemia and malaria/HIV co-infections in infants and young children. Due to its continued growth in research, a vacancy has arisen for the position of Data Specialist II. Deadline for applications is 18 May 2007.

Kenyans are now faced with the fact that ‘tomorrow’ is bleak, writes Alex Owiti. They no longer want to think about the so called ‘leaders of tomorrow’. But are at the same time confronted with the urgency to elect leaders who will relieve them from the bondage of corruption, tribalism and other injustices.

The Kenya government has with immediate effect suspended the controversial land allocations at the troubled Chepyuk settlement scheme in Mt Elgon district, in an effort to end land clashes. At the same time, a committee of 60 elders drawn from the two warring clans of the Soy and the Dorobo (Mosop) was appointed to help vet all squatters before new allocation exercise was put in place.

Reporters Without Borders have condemned a government decision to withhold state advertising from the Standard Group media, which include The Standard daily newspaper and Kenya Television Network (KTN). The Standard recently published a report claiming that a government minister had approached Armenian organised crime members with a view to having former President Daniel arap Moi’s son murdered.

Cognizant of the shortcomings of the education system and juvenile delinquency dilemma in Kenya as a whole and Siaya District in particular, the Ugunja Community Resource Centre developed the Nyasanda Peace and Sports Academy. The Nyasanda Peace and Sports Academy is a multi-faceted program providing youth in the Ugunja community the opportunity to participate in sports, academic and social development activities.

In October 2006 a competition for schools participating in the KNUT/AFT HIV/AIDS programme got off the ground with the involvement of 105 schools. EI provided support for this initiative which was heralded as an excellent method of motivating schools to step up their HIV/AIDS education efforts

The organisers of "eLearning Africa" 2007 have now released the programme for the second annual conference on ICT for development, education and training. The event will take place from May 28 to 30 in the Safari Park Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya.

"Ensuring Justice for Vulnerable Communities in Kenya" is a new report published by the Open Society Institute Law & Health Initiative and East Africa Initiative. Based on interviews with representatives of nongovernmental organizations, health providers, people living with HIV/AIDS, legal advocates, government officials, and international donors in Kenya, the report assesses the status of HIV-related legal services in the country.

Ishmael Reed Publishing Co. is looking for new short stories, preferably not published elsewhere, by Kenyan authors for publication in January 2008. Please send your short story, accompanied by a short author biography, to the editor, Mukoma Wa Ngugi, at [email][email protected] with the subject heading, Kenya - new short fiction. The submission deadline is 15 July 2007.

The rising death toll from on-going land clashes in Kenya and the apparent inability of the government to protect the lives of its citizens attests to the complex nature of the underlying problem. To date, 147 people have been killed and an estimated 60,000 have been left homeless, by the violence that has gripped the slopes of mount Elgon in Western Kenya.

To be sure, the government does indeed have the wherewithal to quell the conflict and disarm all parties involved, as evidenced by the swift and effective, if not brutal, suppression of political dissent in recent times.

The issue of land is a contentious one right across the continent. In Zimbabwe, the government’s land redistribution programme has triggered violence and adversely affected food production. In post-apartheid South Africa land redistribution has been ongoing. Although some land-claims have been settled, there is still a significant lobby by those who remain landless. In other instances, land clashes have been a result of population growth, environmental degradation and an increased need to rationalize land tenure regimes. Pastoralist and agricultural land-use practices vie for increasingly scarce land.

In Kenya, the government’s centralised control of land distribution and registration has been highly politicized, leading to frequent conflagrations, such as the current one. At independence, the government assumed control of large tracts of arable land. Some of these were distributed through settlement schemes which sought to distribute parcels fro subsistence farming to those without land. Others were retained by the government through the parastatal Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC) whose purpose was to support the country’s agricultural production and through large scale farming.

The economic declines of the recent years and the subsequent state divestment gave way to selling off of these lands that were previously controlled by government. In the process, land became an instrument of political patronage, much like the case of Zimbabwe.

With increasing political dissent, the Moi regime began to trade land for political support, allocating it to influential individuals and to groups whose support the government needed. Whilst in some instances, the land redistribution exercise targeted deserving groups; in other cases it alienated groups who felt they had been denied land to which they had historical claim. In the 90’s clashes broke out in the Rift Valley between the maasai and other groups whom they perceived as interlopers who had settled on land that was historically theirs.

The common thread linking past land conflicts in Kenya is that they tend to flare up at times of intense political activity such as elections. Given the strong influence of ethnicity and clannism in Kenyan politics, it has been convenient for politicians to use land distribution as a bargaining tool or a rallying point.

The self-styled Sabaot Land Defence Force (SLDF) purports to fight for the land rights of the Sabaot community who inhabit the Mount Elgon region in western Kenya. Their campaign of violence has left hundreds dead and thousands more evicted from land that had been allocated by the government for settlement. This is no departure from the form-book of previous clashes that have been witnessed in Kenya in the last 30 years.

The government is complicit in the violence and terror against its own citizens. There have been accusations of direct or indirect government involvement in the violence that has plagued the area. This is not the first time that aspersions of this nature have been cast, especially given the well-orchestrated way in which the present and past attacks have been carried out.

At a more significant level, until such time as government reviews land policy, the system will remain open to manipulation and exploitation for political gain. A clearly defined land policy will go a long way in poverty eradication by ensuring a means of subsistence. Furthermore, land ownership provides access to credit for the poor.

As long as the current inequalities exist and the economic vulnerability of populations provides a means of control, not only in Kenya, but across the continent, governments’ commitment to human development will be schizophrenic at best.

Further Reading: Land Tenure and Administration in Africa: Lessons of Experience and Emerging Issues. International Institute for Environment and Development & Food and Agricultural Organization. 2006.

Land tenure and conflict in Africa: Prevention, mitigation and reconstruction. African Center for Technologies. 2004. http://www.acts.or.ke/pubs/reports/Land%20Tenure.pdf

Land clashes in western Kenya have killed 147 people in the past six months, uprooted more than 60,000 and left already basic health services in disarray, aid workers have reported. Violent disputes over land are common in the east African country, but these are the worst for a decade and residents fear they could escalate ahead of elections expected in December.