Kenya’s Ambitious Renewable Energy Revolution

By Felicity Bradstock - Feb 10, 2024

• Kenya targets 100 percent clean energy by 2030, backed by a $70 million investment from the Climate Investment Funds.
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• The country's renewable energy sector, primarily geothermal and hydro sources, faces challenges in meeting peak demand and grid stability.
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• With expert support and funding, Kenya anticipates becoming a global leader in renewable energy, setting a precedent for other nations.
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Kenya aims to transition to 100 percent clean energy by the end of the decade, under one of the world’s most ambitious climate pledges to date. It is being supported – alongside several other countries, by funding from several development banks under a scheme that is expected to support the advancement of a global green transition. As several economically developed countries invest in the shift from fossil fuels to renewable alternatives and decarbonize their economies, greater funding will be required to ensure that the green transition is taking place on a global rather than just a local level. 

The Climate Investment Funds (CIF) will finance a $70 million plan to advance Kenya’s renewable energy capacity in support of a green transition, with an initial payment of $46.39 million. The CIF was established in 2008 as a multilateral climate fund to finance pilot projects in developing countries at the request of the G8 and G20. It expects the financing from its Renewable Energy Integration (REI) investment program to contribute to a reduction in Kenya’s greenhouse gas emissions by 32 percent by 2030 and to help the country achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Most of the funds will come in the form of a loan, with $5 million in the form of a grant.  

The CIF investment is expected to spur high levels of additional investment in the green energy sector, with a further $243 million from the public and private sectors expected from implementation partners, including the African Development Bank and the World Bank Group. 

At present, nearly 90 percent of Kenya’s energy comes from renewable resources, with 45 percent coming from geothermal sources and 26 percent from hydropower. However, Kenya’s renewable energy sector faces significant challenges and is still often unable to meet peak demand. Its energy sources do not provide a steady flow of energy, meaning that alternative options must be added to the grid and the country’s battery capacity must be increased, to ensure the growing energy demand is met and excess energy produced outside of peak hours is not lost. 

Although a large proportion of Kenya’s power comes from renewable sources, it currently experiences regular blackouts due to the unstable state of its existing grid system. According to Kenya’s National Bureau of Statistics, it imported 706.9 kWh of electricity from neighboring Ethiopia and Uganda in the first 11 months of 2023, a significant increase from 288.27 kWh in the same period of 2022. 

Expert support from the CIF is expected to help Kenya tackle these challenges and develop its renewable energy, to achieve 100 percent clean energy generation by 2030. The move will help attract investment in innovative storage technologies, such as battery storage and pumped hydropower, to combat the challenge of stable power delivery. It will also see the addition of alternative renewable energy production, such as solar and wind power, which will see an increase of 30 percent and 19 percent respectively by 2030. 

Kenya is one of ten countries to receive funding under the CIF’s REI program, alongside Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Fiji, and Mali. Funding from the CIF is expected to support the green transition of these countries, in support of a global green transition. While several Western countries are investing in the deployment of renewable energy operations, many developing countries cannot afford to do the same without funding from donors and richer countries. Investing in the developing world’s green energy capacity will support the global green transition needed to tackle climate change. 

Anthony Nyong, the Director for Climate Change and Green Growth at the African Development Bank stated, “We are excited to welcome the endorsement of the REI Investment Plan for Kenya, a transformative step towards a sustainable energy future.” He added, “This comprehensive plan represents a strategic blueprint for integrating renewable energy into?the country’s energy landscape. It reflects our collective commitment to fostering innovation, reducing carbon emissions, and creating a resilient energy infrastructure. We?look forward to actively participating in the implementation of this plan, working?hand in hand with all stakeholders.”

Kenya has significant renewable energy potential, as seen through the recent development of its already strong green energy sector. It is home to vast geothermal resources, coming from the African rift, which runs underground. The Somalian and Nubian tectonic plates moved in opposite directions around 25 million years ago, making the surface between two fault lines sink, and transporting magmatic fluids closer to Earth’s surface to create the rift. The valley stretches over 6,400km from Jordan to Mozambique, providing the perfect conditions to generate geothermal energy. 

Peketsa Mangi, the general manager of geothermal development at KenGen, explains, “Kenya has developed the capacity for precision geoscientific studies that help us to identify potential areas to drill. Exploration and drilling are cost-intensive endeavours and investors don’t want to go to a greenfield without confirmed viable resources.” The oil crisis experienced in the 1970s accelerated the deployment of geothermal resources across the country, providing a blueprint for other countries on the rift to follow. 

An abundance of renewable energy sources has already allowed Kenya to develop its green energy sector substantially. Funding from the CIF is expected to help the East African country to achieve 100 percent clean energy by the end of the decade and net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. This will put it far ahead of many other countries striving to achieve a green transition and could provide the blueprint for neighboring countries to follow.

By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com

Floyd killing finds echoes of abuse in South Africa, Kenya

By GERALD IMRAY and TOM ODULA

1 of 15

FILE - In this June 9, 2020, file photo, Kenyan children and men are photographed in the Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya, in front of a new mural showing an incident in 2016 when a Kenyan riot policeman repeatedly kicked a protester. The killing of George Floyd in the United States has raised awareness over police violence in South Africa and Kenya. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga, File)


CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Collins Khosa was killed by law enforcement officers in a poor township in Johannesburg over a cup of beer left in his yard. The 40-year-old black man was choked, slammed against a wall, beaten, kicked and hit with the butt of a rifle by the soldiers as police watched, his family says.

Two months later, South Africans staged a march against police brutality. But it was mostly about the killing of George Floyd in the United States, with the case of Khosa, who died on April 10, raised only briefly.

“We also lost our loved one. South Africa, where are you?” Khosa’s partner, Nomsa Montsha, asked in a wrenching TV interview Friday, eight weeks after she held his hand as he died while waiting for an ambulance.

Her words, in a soft, steady voice, were a searing rebuke of the perceived apathy in South Africa over Khosa’s death. The army exonerated the soldiers in a report that concluded he died from a blunt force head injury that was no one’s fault. His family is still seeking a criminal case.

In this photo taken Wednesday, June 3, 2020 demonstrators protest outside parliament in Cape Town, South Africa, about the killing of George Floyd in the United Sates and Collins Khosa, portrait on poster, in Alexandra Township near Johannesburg. Khosa’s family said he was beaten to death by law enforcement officers over a cup of beer left in his yard during the coronavirus lockdown. (AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht)
Floyd’s death also emboldened a small number of people in Kenya to march and tell their own stories of injustice and brutality by police.

Despite racial reconciliation that emerged after the end of the apartheid system, poor and black South Africans still fall victim to security forces that now are mostly black. The country is plagued by violent crime, and police often are accused of resorting to heavy-handed tactics.

Journalist Daneel Knoetze, who looked into police brutality in South Africa between 2012 and 2019, found that there were more than 42,000 criminal complaints against police, which included more than 2,800 killings — more than one a day. There were more than 27,000 cases of alleged assault by police, many classified as torture, and victims were “overwhelmingly” poor and black, he said.

“It is clear that in South Africa, 26 years of democracy have not as yet ensured that black lives matter as much as white lives,” said a statement last week from the Nelson Mandela Foundation, which promotes the vision of the anti-apartheid leader and the country’s first black president.
Angelo Fick, who researches issues of human rights and equality, said white people are policed differently from blacks in South Africa in what he calls “the echoes of apartheid.”


In this June 3, 2020, photo, demonstrators take part in a protest outside parliament in Cape Town, South Africa, against the killing of George Floyd in the United Sates and Collins Khosa, portrait on poster, in the Alexandra Township, near Johannesburg. Khosa’s family said he was killed by law enforcement officers over a cup of beer left in his yard during the coronavirus lockdown. (AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht)

Khosa’s family said his beating death followed accusations by the soldiers that he was drinking a beer in his yard, which was not illegal even though buying alcohol was prohibited at the time because of South Africa’s strict coronavirus lockdown.

The sale of tobacco also is illegal during the lockdown, and middle-class whites discovered buying cigarettes have gotten off with a warning from police.

Montsha described how the soldiers, while beating Khosa, struck her with sjamboks, the heavy whips wielded by security forces during the apartheid era. Police and soldiers still carry the notorious weapons.
“The old house. You put new furniture in but it’s still the old house,” Fick said of the security forces.

In Kenya, the police force has for two decades been ranked the country’s most corrupt institution. It’s also Kenya’s most deadly, killing far more people than criminals do, according to human rights groups.

In the last three months in Kenya, 15 people, including a 13-year-old boy, have been killed by police while they enforce a curfew, according to a watchdog group. Human rights activists put the figure at 18.


In this Friday, May 8, 2020, file photo, a police officer holds a pistol during clashes with protesters near a burning tire barricade in the Kariobangi slum of Nairobi, Kenya. The killing of George Floyd in the United States has raised awareness over police violence in South Africa and Kenya. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga, File)

The boy, Yasin Hussein Moyo, was shot in the stomach by police in March as he stood on the balcony of his home. Police have blamed a “stray bullet,” but witnesses say the officers deliberately started shooting at the boy’s apartment building as they patrolled the neighborhood during the curfew.

Kenya’s culture of an oppressive colonial police force is still intact, said Peter Kiama, the executive director of the Independent Medico Legal Unit, which tracks police abuse. There also is a security system that has sought to subdue opposition to the government and, in turn, has become corrupt.


FILE - In this Wednesday, June 3, 2020, file photo, a Maasai man jumps next to a new mural painted this week in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya, showing George Floyd with the Swahili word "Haki" or "Justice." Floyd’s killing in the United States has raised awareness over police violence in South Africa and Kenya. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga, File)

“There is a symbiotic relationship,” Kiama said.

When Kenya created two organizations nearly a decade ago to monitor and hold police accountable, the members of one of them found a severed human head in their new offices on the first day of work. Just in case the message wasn’t clear, there also was a piece of paper with the words: “Tread carefully.”

Kiama’s organization says 980 people have been killed by police in Kenya since 2013, and 90 percent of those were execution-style slayings.

Despite the decades of injustice and brutality, activists say there is no groundswell of public support for change in South Africa and Kenya, two of the biggest economies in Africa.

“I gave up on police violence being an issue around which one could get any kind of attention from politicians, or anyone,” said David Bruce, an expert on South African law enforcement for 20 years.

In her interview on national TV, Montsha looked at the camera and asked South Africans why no one was standing up for Khosa.

“We are crying out loud,” she said.


FILE - In this Tuesday, June 9, 2020, file photo, demonstrators protest the killing of George Floyd and police violence in both the U.S. and Kenya outside the Parliament building in Nairobi, Kenya. The killing of George Floyd in the United States has raised awareness of police violence in South Africa and Kenya. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga, File)-


Odula reported from Nairobi, Kenya.

On the street and online: social media becomes key to protest in Kenya

As elections near amid soaring debt and a cost-of-living crisis, grassroots activists are turning to social media to propel change

Members of the Kenya Fight Inequality Alliance learn how to spread their message online during a meeting in Nairobi.

 Photograph: Courtesy of Kenya Fight Inequality Alliance


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Caroline Kimeu

Tue 12 Jul 2022 

When 1,700 Kenyans took to the streets of Nairobi, Kisumu and Mombasa last week, they had one main demand of the government: to bring down the skyrocketing cost of living. Commemorating Saba Saba Day (“seven seven” in Swahili, when protesters on 7 July 1990 called for democracy under President Daniel arap Moi), the demonstrators brandished placards that read #nofoodnoelections and #lowerfoodprices.

Crucially, they also took to social media with their demands. “There is an escalation in how online space is being used,” says Sungu Oyoo, a community organiser with grassroots political movement, Kongamano la Mapinduzi (which roughly translates as conference of the revolution).

“We are realising that we may not always get coverage in traditional media or may face media blackouts,” he says. “So many activists are using social media like an independent media outlet – where they can push the conversations and reach more people.”

Oyoo says online activism is even more powerful in the hands of disenfranchised communities. “On social media, we are all starting from the same point.”

Online social justice movements are gathering momentum in Kenya’s informal settlements. In Mukuru, one of Africa’s biggest slums, residents meet for bimonthly meetings, known as barazas, which have become a vital space for political debate among young people as the country’s elections on 9 August approach. In this election, they are using social media to press presidential candidates on two big-ticket issues affecting their daily lives: the rising cost of living and the country’s soaring debt.

Young people from low-income areas such as Mukuru have long been sidelined from national policy debates that disproportionately affect their communities. “Kenyan media is run by the highest class of society. The economic interests of those people and the ones of the street are divergent, and the patterns of coverage reflect that,” says Oyoo.

Young Kenyan activists meeting to debate issues such as debt cancellation. 

Photograph: Courtesy of Kenya Fight Inequality Alliance

Collaborating with activist organisations such as the Kenya Fight Inequality Alliance, people from poorer areas are now coordinating “Twitterstorms” to air concerns. “They feel they get the attention of their representatives better that way,” says Winny Chepkemoi, national coordinator of Kenya Fight Inequality Alliance.

The alliance supports activists organised in community-led social justice centres across the country as they launch online campaigns. In May, they successfully pushed MPs to reject an increase in the tax on staples such as maize flour, which had been planned even as 69% of Kenyans reported struggling to feed their families. The justice centres organised a peaceful protest at parliament and ran a #NjaaRevolution (hunger revolution) campaign on Twitter, which trended for days.
The government is raising debt but it’s not being used to improve our lives. Our grandchildren will be paying for thisKimani Nyoike, Kenya Fight Inequality Alliance

Many of the young people turning to online campaigns say it is their way of taking power back and getting issues on the agenda. “We can’t all go out and demonstrate,” says Felix Kiamboi, a Mukuru resident, “but we can marshal [people] and send a message to those in power.”

Young people from poor areas often bear the brunt of police violence during street protests, so the online movements have created a safe space for activism. According to Solomon Josephat, a 22-year-old Mukuru resident, street protests are often divided along class lines. Inequality is rife in Kenya, and the issues that propel the middle classes on to the streets contrast with those that mobilise lower-income communities.

Josephat says building a more united front on social and economic issues would make police brutality less likely. “If the middle class showed up more for protests, it would be harder for the police to get violent because they wouldn’t know who they were shooting at,” he says.

Kenya Fight Inequality Alliance wants young people to make their voice heard on debt cancellation with the hashtag #CancelDebtKE. 

Photograph: Courtesy of Kenya Fight Inequality Alliance

Class divides allow poor policy decisions to go unchallenged, say Mukuru residents. “As Kenyans, we are to blame because as long as we can afford to get by, we have a ‘we-shall-cope’ attitude – until we’re affected directly,” says Frederick Okwafubwa, 22, who lives in the settlement.

The cost of a 2kg bag of maize meal has nearly doubled since last year, placing the country’s staple food, ugali (boiled maize flour), out of reach for many. Some have had to make drastic changes to get by. Joyce Mwikali, an unemployed 33-year old Mukuru resident, has cut back to one meal a day. “If things are like this now, how will they be for my daughter?” she asks.
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Collins Mageto, who works on branding for companies, says his wife had to return to her parents’ home with their child because her family was better off. “We were struggling. Things went up, and the money I used to leave for their daily needs was no longer enough,” says the 24-year-old.

Reflecting on previous election choices, Nicholas Mutinda, a 30-year old businessman, says: “Our first mistake was electing a president who doesn’t know the price of bread,” referring to President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is the son of the country’s independence leader and founding father, Jomo Kenyatta. Mutinda says he wants to elect a leader who knows how people feel.

Experts say the country’s high debt is contributing to the cost of living crisis through highly taxed goods. In a new campaign launched last month, the Mukuru Youth Initiative used the hashtag #CancelDebtKe to push presidential candidates to make detailed commitments on how they would tackle Kenya’s rising debt.

Activists from Kenya’s Social Justice Centres Working Group demonstrate with empty pots and cooking oil containers – to represent the high cost of living – during a protest on Saba Saba Day last week. 

Photograph: Daniel Irungu/EPA

“The government is raising debt but it’s not being used to improve the lives of Kenyans,” says Kimani Nyoike, a member of the Fight Inequality Alliance. “Our grandchildren will be paying for this.”

Kenya’s soaring public debt stands at more than 8tn Kenyan shillings (about £56bn), and earlier this month, parliament increased its debt ceiling to KES10tn.

From this month, for the first time in Kenya, the government’s debt repayments have overtaken current spending. This will place a significant strain on Kenya’s growth, says Ken Gichinga, chief economist at Mentoria Economics.


Pressure points: threat of unrest looms as Kenya’s elections approach

With mounting public pressure to address the debt burden, the veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga has promised to restructure debt and negotiate debt relief. George Wajackoyah, an underdog in the race, has suggested clearing Kenya’s debt by legalising cannabis and selling it abroad. William Ruto, the deputy president and a leading contender, has also vowed to bring an end to excessive borrowing, but was vague on details.

“The election period may not be enough to get these issues fully addressed, but pushing our leaders lets them know Kenyans are watching them,” says Nyoike.

 

Q&A: Kenya’s trailblazing women runners chart course to success in new book

Book Announcement

PENN STATE

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Watch almost any women’s distance running competition today and you will likely see a Kenyan near the front of the pack. Kenyan women won three of the six major international marathons in 2023, as well as 29 Olympic medals since Pauline Konga became the first woman runner to medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. Former professional runner Michelle Sikes, assistant professor of kinesiology, of African studies and of history at Penn State, lived and trained with these women in Kenya for several months. While there, she spoke with the trailblazing athletes who set the course for the country’s current generation of women runners.

Sikes detailed what she learned in her new book, “Kenya’s Running Women: A History,” in which she examines how Kenya’s women runners overcame challenges to become some of the fastest distance runners in the world today.

Penn State News spoke with Sikes about her book and its implications for understanding sport and women’s roles in society.

Q: You lived and trained in Kenya while conducting your research for this book. What’s a typical day like training in Kenya?

Sikes: You wake up around 6 a.m. and do your first run of the day, typically in a large group. You gather at a meeting point in the village, the sun is just coming up, and you’ll shuffle off down the road, not at a fast pace, just to get your legs moving and get some mileage under your feet.

Then there’s a second run at 10 a.m. That’s the key workout of the day. It could be a Fartlek — varying your pacing or difficulty during the run — a steady run or intervals. Then some people return for a third run around 4 p.m. The length of the training sessions depends on your event. If you’re a marathoner, you could be out there a long time. If you’re a track athlete like me, it’s a shorter distance. It varies based on your needs.

Q: Where did the idea for the book come from?

Sikes: I have been a runner for most of my life. I was an athlete in high school and in my senior year of college won the NCAA Division I championship in the 5,000 meters. In graduate school, I wanted to study the societal aspects of sport and how sport can be a lens to understand society and people. With running being my particular passion, I also always wanted to go to Kenya. I pursued my doctoral degree at Oxford University, where they have a vibrant African Studies Centre, and from there, it was easier to go to Kenya because the United Kingdom has deep ties to the African continent due to the legacy of colonial rule.

I was interested in understanding the journeys of the first generation of female athletes from Kenya, the pathbreakers, the ones who were the first to compete at the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games, the first to leave the country and the continent. There’s some documentation on the topic, but there’s a need for more work on the history of African sport and in particular women and the obstacles they managed to overcome.

This book sheds light on a culture and a community that is regarded as the fastest in the world. It helps us to understand how sport can change ideas about identity and community, in particular women and women’s place in society.

Q: Can you walk us through the main themes of the book?

Sikes: The title, “Kenya’s Running Women: A History,” really sums it up. It takes us chronologically through the 20th century and the state of women’s running from the colonial era, the 1920s and ‘30s when organized sport starts to take root in Kenya, to the professionalization of running in the late ‘80s and ‘90s when we see the first large-scale presence of Kenyan women competing internationally.

By the time Kenya gains independence in 1963, we have Kenyan men representing the nation at major events and competitions, but we don’t have any women traveling outside the country. It’s not until the mid- to late ‘60s that for the first time Kenya’s running women make their debut at the Commonwealth Games, the East African Athletics Championships and the 1986 Mexico City Olympic Games. The latter was the Olympics where the Kenyan men made their enormously successful debut as world record beaters — they won gold, silver and bronze across all the major distance events and shocked the world — but I would argue that the three women representing Kenya for the first time in track and field events should have received more attention even though they didn’t make the finals. They were there, and that’s exciting.

In the 1970s and ‘80s, the men continued to gain attention, win medals and set records. We didn’t see much on the women’s side, and the number of women able to compete at the international level remained fairly low. We see the first large-scale presence of Kenyan women competing internationally in the late 1980s and the ‘90s. That comes, I argue, with the sport shedding its amateur rules, when running becomes an acceptable and legitimate profession. Women were able to race for money and earn a living. New opportunities opened to them during this era.

So, in the book I explore the tension between men’s and women’s running and look at the obstacles and challenges that prevented the women from emerging at the same pace as the men. I also look at the strategies that the women who did succeed used and what allowed them to get to that point.

Q: What were some of the obstacles that the women had to overcome?

Sikes: All Kenyan runners were challenged by the environment in terms of scarcity of resources when it comes to fast tracks and opportunities to record the times needed to race at major international events. When it rained, the dirt tracks that they used could become heavy, making it difficult to record fast times. This hindered the women more than the men, because the men had the opportunity to come to the United States and compete as student athletes. Certain universities around the U.S. recruited them, and once here, they did very well.

The women, on the other hand, were affected because Title IX had yet to be enforced, so there wasn’t the equivalent number of scholarships available for women — American or international — as there were for men. So, the women remained in Kenya and competed in domestic competitions, but there weren’t that many competitions and the weather was an obstacle.

There’s also the altitude issue. Kenya’s main races take place at altitude where you can’t run as fast. You need to be at sea level to record quick times.

And there were cultural issues. When push came to shove, resources in a family were more likely to go towards educating a son rather than a daughter. Once women got married, it was a challenge to maintain an athletic career when there are expectations that come with being a wife and a mother.

Q: How did they overcome these challenges?

Sikes: In many ways, they followed the mold that the men had established before them. If a young girl demonstrated talent and was able to continue her interest in running, she first had to have the resources in her family to go to primary and secondary school.

There were opportunities for women in the major institutions in Kenya, which stemmed from the massive legacy of sport left by the British in the form of schools and institutions that promoted sport and competition. Both the military and police reserved spots for women, and there were parastatal institutions like the post and telecommunications. Athletics could be a criterion for employment in these state and government positions. These entities would send teams to competitions in Kenya, and they wanted the best athletes. This environment gave women a protected space where they could earn a living wage while being coached in running. Once Title IX became more enforced in the U.S., scholarships started to open up for women, and Kenyan women were able to leverage these opportunities, travel outside Kenya, earn college degrees and really be at the cutting edge of education and sport.

Q: What do you hope this book accomplishes?

Sikes: I hope that the trailblazing women whom I interviewed live on in this book. And I hope that readers come away realizing that sport is a great way to understand society more broadly.

 

Endemic malaria found in high, dry northwestern Kenya

Region was thought to be low-risk, but new mosquito and tougher parasite are changing that

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DUKE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: 

MAP SHOWS ENDEMIC AREAS OF PLASMODIUM VIVAX ACROSS AFRICA AND ACROSS KENYA (PANEL B). DATA FROM MALARIA ATLAS PROJECT. GRAPHIC FROM APPENDIX OF PAPER.

view more 

CREDIT: “PLASMODIUM VIVAX PREVALENCE IN SEMIARID REGION OF NORTHERN KENYA, 2019,” WENDY PRUDHOMME-O’MEARA W, LINDA MARAGA, HANNAH MEREDITH, DANIEL ESIMIT, GILCHRIST LOKOEL, TABITHA CHEPKWONY, JOSEPH KIPKOECH, GEORGE AMBANI, DIANA MENYA, ELIZABETH FREEDMAN, STEVE TAYLOR, ANDREW OBALA. EMERGING INFECTIOUS DISEASES, NOV. 2023. DOI: 10.3201/EID2911.230299

DURHAM, N.C. -- Turkana County in northwestern Kenya was supposed to be the land that malaria forgot. An arid, windy region abutting Uganda, South Sudan and Ethiopia, its climate was thought to be too dry for the mosquitoes that harbor malaria-causing parasites, and thus it has been excluded from national efforts to prevent the spread of the disease.

But that assumption may have been wrong, according to a new study by malaria researchers at the Duke Global Health Institute and Moi University in Kenya. And worse, it may leave an opening for new forms of malaria that could reverse the progress East Africa has made in controlling the disease.

“These findings are game-changers for malaria control in East Africa,” says Wendy Prudhomme O’Meara, Ph.D., a professor of medicine and global health at Duke who led the research.

O’Meara’s team found that approximately 30 percent of the people they tested in Turkana County had malaria parasites in their blood, indicating that the disease was already endemic in the region. But even more concerning was the type of malaria: Researchers found a small but significant incidence of a parasite called Plasmodium vivax, which historically has been almost non-existent in sub-Saharan Africa. The study is the first to confirm cases of P. vivax malaria in Kenya that were likely the result of local transmission.

The parasite’s appearance in Kenya may be connected to an invasive mosquito species known as Anopheles stephensi, which migrated to the Horn of Africa during the past decade and has been found in five countries in northern Africa. Its arrival in Djibouti in 2016 coincided with a 100-fold increase in malaria cases, leading the World Health Organization to issue an alert about the insect’s invasion, calling it “a major potential threat to malaria control and elimination” on the continent.

“If we don’t do something about it, we’re going to be in trouble very soon,” says Eric Ochomo, Ph.D., a medical entomologist with the Kenya Medical Research Institute who identified the invasive species in northern Kenya in December 2022, around the same time as O’Meara’s study.

Both the mosquito and the parasite it carries present significant challenges to the continent’s malaria control efforts, the researchers warn. P. vivax behaves differently than the most prevalent forms of malaria in Africa, which can allow it to evade screening tests and therapies most frequently used across the continent. It can go dormant in the liver, causing relapses weeks or months after infection.

“We are worried that with the presence of the An. stephensi, cases of  P. vivax malaria may very well increase,” says O’Meara, who has been working on malaria prevention in Kenya since 2003. “There are no measures in place for P. vivax malaria control in Kenya, and it needs some targeted mechanisms.”

Native to India, Anopheles stephensi mosquitoes thrive around sewers and dirty water, making them more adaptable to urban areas. The fact that they are breeding successfully in hot, dry regions like Turkana should cause public health officials to rethink their assumptions about malarial hot spots, Ochomo says.

“Areas that are either approaching elimination or that are categorized as low risk are going to end up with higher prevalence than they currently see,” he says.

O’Meara’s team shared their findings with Kenya’s National Malaria Control Program, which is now ramping up distribution of mosquito nets and surveillance in Turkana County. The researchers also plan to work with community members to identify and eliminate potential mosquito breeding grounds.

A spike in P. vivax cases could also undermine what was thought to be a genetic firewall against the parasite spreading on the continent. Many Africans have a genetic trait that is believed to protect against P. vivax infection, which is one reason cases have been relatively rare. But O’Meara says there are signs that recent outbreaks may be affecting even those with the genetic protection, a reminder that the parasite is constantly evolving new ways to evade defenses. 

“The malaria parasite has successfully transmitted between humans and mosquitoes for tens of thousands of years,” she says. “The co-evolution of the parasite with humans has made it incredibly difficult to eliminate.”

CITATION:  “Plasmodium vivax Prevalence in Semiarid Region of Northern Kenya, 2019,” Wendy Prudhomme-O’Meara W, Linda Maraga, Hannah Meredith, Daniel Esimit, Gilchrist Lokoel, Tabitha Chepkwony, Joseph Kipkoech, George Ambani, Diana  Menya, Elizabeth Freedman, Steve Taylor, Andrew Obala. Emerging Infectious Diseases, Nov. 2023. DOI: 10.3201/eid2911.230299

Online: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/29/11/23-0299_article

A traditional method of gathering clean water in Northwestern Kenya involves making pits on the sandy riverbank and letting the water filter upward into the hole. People then painstakingly scoop up this relatively clean water for use, but the pits left behind make excellent mosquito breeding habitat.

Kenyan community health workers being trained on malaria inspect mosquito larvae scooped from an irrigation canal.

CREDIT

Wendy Prudhomme O’Meara - Duke Global Health

JOURNAL

Emerging Infectious Diseases

DOI

10.3201/eid2911.230299 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Plasmodium vivax Prevalence in Semiarid Region of Northern Kenya, 2019

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Oct-2023

Kenyan police clash with anti-government protesters 

• FRANCE 24 English

Police in Kenya clashed with anti-government protesters Tuesday in the capital, Nairobi, during a fresh round of demonstrations called by the opposition leader. Opposition lawmakers marched to the president's office, in the central business district, to present a petition. Police dispersed them with tear gas.

In Pics: Kenya Opposition Protests

The fresh round of demonstrations in Kenya demanded action to tackle the cost of living and reforms to the electoral commission that oversaw last year's election that was won by President William Ruto.

Photos: AP/Ben Curtis

UPDATED: 03 MAY 2023 

A truck burns after opposition protesters set fire to it after failing to open the container it was transporting, during clashes in the Kibera slum of the capital Nairobi, Kenya.

Kenyan riot police fire a tear gas grenade during clashes with rock-throwing opposition protesters in the Kibera slum of the capital Nairobi, Kenya.


Kenyan riot police react as a tear gas grenade they threw explodes next to them, during clashes with rock-throwing opposition protesters in the Kibera slum of the capital Nairobi, Kenya.

A protestor burns tyres to block the road on the outskirts of Nairobi. Police in Kenya clashed with anti-government protesters in the capital, Nairobi, in a fresh round of demonstrations called by the opposition leader.

A policeman walks past a minibus that was burned and its passengers robbed during clashes near the Kibera slum of the capital Nairobi, Kenya.



An opposition protester throws a tear gas grenade back at police during clashes in the Kibera slum of the capital Nairobi, Kenya

Onlookers gather on an overpass to watch as opposition protesters clash with police in the Kibera slum of the capital Nairobi, Kenya.


Opposition protesters throw rocks at riot police during clashes in the Kibera slum of the capital Nairobi, Kenya.


An opposition protester throws rocks at riot police, in front of a cloud of tear gas, during clashes in the Kibera slum of the capital Nairobi, Kenya.

An opposition protester throws a rock at a passing vehicle during clashes in the Kibera slum of the capital Nairobi, Kenya

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Kenya in search of harmony 60 years after independence

Since Kenya gained independence on December 12, 1963, the country has had its fair share of struggles. While the wounds of ethnic violence are slowly healing, the economic situation is becoming unbearable.

Philipp Sandner

DW

December 10, 2023

A statue of Kenya's revolutionary leader Dedan Kimathi sits at the heart of Nairobi, the nation's capital

Simon Maina/AFP/Getty Images

A glare full of determination, right hand resting on his rifle: The statue of iconic freedom fighter Dedan Kimathi (pictured above) is hard to miss for anyone walking through the center of Nairobi, Kenya's capital.

The history of Kenya and its struggle for independence from its British colonizers are woven into the fabric of Nairobi. The statue of Kimathi gazes down Kenyatta Avenue, named for Jomo Kenyatta, who led Kenya toward independence and was its first president.

The country was given a new start when Prince Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth II, formally handed over power on December 12, 1963, thereafter known as Jamhuri Day — "Jamhuri" being the Swahili word for "Republic."

Independence was declared on December 12, 1963, and Jomo Kenyatta (left) went on to become Kenya's first president

Central Press/AFP/Getty Images

Sixty years on, not everyone is in the mood for celebration. Berline Ndolo is the founder and program manager of the World Network for Sustainable Change, a nongovernmental organization based in Kisumu, western Kenya that helps vulnerable people with education and agriculture projects. In her role, she interacts daily with, as she puts it, "the poorest of the poor."

"This particular group of people cannot be happy on Jamhuri Day. Because of the high cost of living right now, where life has become very expensive for them, they cannot even afford three meals a day, maybe not even two," Ndolo told DW. "They'll focus on how best they can feed their family with their very few resources."

"High cost of living" is a common phrase across Kenya these days. With President William Ruto, now one year in office, cutting subsidies and introducing new taxes, the situation has gone from bad to worse.

"The president had a very promising agenda for the people of Kenya," said Ndolo. "The people who voted for him were very hopeful."

Now, she said, nothing seems to be changing. "If anything, businesses are closing, people who are in employment are really heavily taxed, and still, we're struggling to make ends meet."

How Kenya overcame ethnic division

Kenya's recent history has been defined by the post-election crisis in 2007 and early 2008. A narrow but contested victory of incumbent Mwai Kibaki, an ethnic Kikuyu, over Raila Odinga, of the Luo community, sparked violent clashes that left up to 1,500 people dead. Peter Muchiri, 26, who works at a hotel in the central Kenyan town of Nyahururu, described the crisis as a wake-up call for the nation.

"That was the turning point," said Muchiri. "Normally, there were towns and places where you couldn't go to look for a job or ask for help because if you're not one of them, no one cares about you."

Muchiri was 11 years old when the violence broke out. Nyahururu was one of the towns considered safe at the time.

"The country was in a big mess," Muchiri said. "People learned a lot from that."

He feels the ethnic divisions have reduced since. "It doesn't matter which tribe you are from. You are Kenyan."

James Shikwati, founder of the Inter Region Economic Network, argues that Ruto has one significant achievement. "He made the Kenyan campaign not largely reliant on ethnic community, to point and say this tribe, that tribe," Shikwati said.

James Shikwati, founder of IREN Kenya, has seen a change in Ruto's style of governance

 Philipp Sandner/DW

While campaigning in 2022, Ruto styled himself as the "hustler" who struggled to make a living, sympathized with the poor and promised to lift them out of poverty.

"By creating the new 'hustler' tribe, meaning the people at the bottom tribe, if we use such a loose term, I think he did a good job in that," said Shikwati. In doing so, Ruto sensitized Kenyans to rethink their country's configuration, he added.
Ruto presidency now being 'scrutinized harshly'

According to Shikwati, this also meant a paradigmatic shift in how Kenyans now view Ruto's presidency. He's being "scrutinized harshly," but not from an ethnic point of view.

"They are not labeling him in the name of his tribe," he said. "They're simply focusing on the economy. They're saying it's not doing well, people are losing their jobs, companies are closing down."

When Ruto's policies caused prices to increase, many Kenyans took to the streets. The massive and sometimes violent protests were spurred by Raila Odinga, a former Kenyan prime minister who refused to accept his defeat after finishing second in the 2022 presidential election. The demonstrations have since ceased, but the economic hardship remains.

Samir Hassan is a father of four and a driver in Mombasa, Kenya's second-largest city. His itinerary regularly leads him to the western edges of the city where the Standard Gauge Railway links the Kenyan coast to the capital. The Chinese-built train delivers tourists three times a day, but with many experiencing economic hardship, the tourists are no longer arriving.

"Now every Kenyan is cutting the costs," Hassan told DW. "Normally, we're very busy in December because it's where people rest and it's where we get mixed clients: foreigners and our local tourists.


"It's a chain of life. There are people who depend on selling their coconuts to tourists. There are people like us drivers who depend on the transfers to feed their children. So they've really cut up that chain because it's one relying on the other."
Big projects and spiraling debt

About five blocks away from the statue of Dedan Kimathi on Kenyatta Avenue is Uhuru Park. The historic area just west of the Nairobi Expressway was the site of many fights for democratization in the 1990s. The park will host a festival for the 60th Jamhuri Day.

Built on stilts, the Nairobi Expressway, the capital's main arterial road, stands out. It links the city center with the airport — and to Nairobi's rail terminals. While the railway, which can take you to Mombasa in just over five hours, was inaugurated in 2017, the expressway only opened last year.

The two crucial infrastructure projects cost billions, and according to economist Shikwati, they account for much of the hardship Kenyans are enduring these days.

William Ruto was one of the candidates opposing President Mwai Kibaki in 2007

EPA/dpa/picture alliance

It all points back to the aftermath of the 2007 post-electoral crisis. Both Ruto and Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of Kenya's first president, were charged before the International Criminal Court for their roles in the crisis. To escape what they called a "colonial" justice, they teamed up for president in 2012 — and won, with Kenyatta becoming president and Ruto vice president.

"That must have put a lot of pressure on them that they have to endear themselves to the Kenyan populace," said Shikwati. "This meant they had to showcase success, and showcasing success means projects, big projects, including the famous Standard Gauge Railway. And that means you borrow money to deliver within a short period because you have only five years before another campaign comes in."

Kenya's Standard Gauge Railway is a recent project that looks good, but cost a lot of money

 Dong Jianghui/Xinhua/picture alliance

Economic hardship challenging Kenya's future

That was the beginning of a spiral of loans and a rapidly growing mountain of debt. According to Shikwati, bias in the global financial system and misjudgments by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund also played their part.

But Ruto's decisions as president, whether ending subsidies and introducing new taxes, certainly did not make the fiscal crisis better.

"Our economy is more or less like what we in Kenya call hawkers — the people who carry things and sell on the street. So I would say it's like a hawking economy. You buy things from China, you sell to Kenyans," explained Shikwati.

In October, Ruto welcomed the UK's King Charles III to Nairobi

Arthur Edwards/The Sun/empics/picture alliance

"You can have a big shop. You are considered to be an SME [small to mid-sized business]. But unlike Germany, you don't produce the screws, you don't produce windshields. You're more like a conveyor belt, moving from one spot to the other," he said.

Following that logic, imposing high taxes on an economy that was not productive left few options but to reduce activities and close down companies, putting even more strain on the population.

It turns out that 60 years after independence, ethnic polarization is no longer the defining factor of Kenyan society. Now, it's economic hardship that's challenging the country's future.

This article was originally written in German.

Charles stops short of apologising for UK’s ‘acts of violence’ in Kenya

Reuters Published November 1, 2023 

Britain’s King Charles III (R) attends the State Banquet hosted by Kenyan President William Ruto at the State House in Nairobi on October 31, 2023. — AFP

NAIROBI: Britain’s King Charles said on Tuesday he felt the “greatest sorrow and deepest regret” for atrocities suffered by Kenyans during their struggle for independence from colonial rule.

But in a speech at the start of a four-day state visit to Kenya, he stopped short of making a full apology called for by survivors of that period and local rights groups who are pressing for reparations from the British government.

“The wrongdoings of the past are a cause of the greatest sorrow and the deepest regret,” Charles said during a state banquet.

“There were abhorrent and unjustifiable acts of violence committed against Kenyans as they waged… a painful struggle for independence and sovereignty and for that, there can be no excuse.”

Many citizens of former British colonies, including leaders of Kenya’s Nandi people, want Charles to directly apologise and endorse reparations for colonial-era abuses, including torture, killings and expropriation of land, much of which remains in British hands.




During the 1952-1960 Mau Mau revolt in central Kenya, some 90,000 Kenyans were killed or maimed and 160,000 detained, the Kenya Hu­­man Rights Commis­sion (KHRC) has estimated.

Britain has previously expressed regret for those abuses and agreed a 20 million pound settlement in 2013.

President William Ruto praised Charles for his courage and readiness “to shed light on uncomfortable truths that reside in the darker regions of our shared experience”.

“The colonial reaction to African struggles for sovereignty, and self-rule was monstrous in its cruelty,” Ruto said.

Published in Dawn, November 1st, 2023

King Charles meets Kenya veterans after admitting colonial abuses

Issued on: 01/11/2023


Nairobi (AFP) – King Charles III met Kenyan veterans of World World II on Wednesday, after acknowledging there was "no excuse" for colonial-era abuses during Britain's rule of the East African country.

King Charles and Queen Camilla met Kenyan veterans of World World II, honouring Africans who died for Britain 

© Tony KARUMBA / AFP

Charles said he wished to "deepen my own understanding of these wrongs" during his four-day state visit to Kenya with Queen Camilla, but also to bolster "a modern partnership of equals facing today's challenges".

There have been widespread calls for Charles to formally apologise to a country Britain violently ruled for decades before Kenya's hard-fought independence in 1963.

On his first day in Nairobi on Tuesday, the 74-year-old British head of state said the "wrongdoings of the past are a cause of the greatest sorrow and the deepest regret", but stopped short of an apology.

"There were abhorrent and unjustifiable acts of violence committed against Kenyans as they waged... a painful struggle for independence and sovereignty. And for that, there can be no excuse," he told a state banquet.

King Charles said the wrongdoings of the past were 'a cause of the greatest sorrow and deepest regret' 

© Chris Jackson / POOL/AFP

"None of this can change the past but by addressing our history with honesty and openness, we can perhaps demonstrate the strength of our friendship today, and in so doing, we can I hope continue to build an ever-closer bond for the years ahead."

Charles has previously made three official visits to Kenya, but this is his first tour of an African and Commonwealth nation since becoming king last year upon the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth II.

'Feared retribution'

On Wednesday, Charles and Camilla visited a war cemetery in Nairobi to honour Africans who died for Britain in two world wars, laying a wreath in front of their graves before meeting Kenyan veterans, some in wheelchairs.

"I hope we can do something special for you," Charles told one of the veterans as he handed out medals to the former soldiers, part of a British initiative to belatedly recognise the contribution of non-European forces to the war effort.

King Charles has faced calls in Kenya to apologise for colonial-era abuses 

© LUIS TATO / AFP

One veteran, Samweli Mburia, who said he was over 100 years old, told AFP he had originally received a medal during colonial rule but got rid of it because he "feared retribution" from independence fighters.

On Tuesday, Charles and his host President William Ruto laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Uhuru Gardens, a site steeped in Kenyan history.

Charles laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Uhuru Gardens, where Kenya declared independence in 1963 

© Tony KARUMBA / AFP

It was there that Kenya's independence was declared at midnight on December 12, 1963, with the national flag replacing the Union flag.

The gardens were built on the site of a camp where British colonial authorities detained suspected Mau Mau guerrillas during the suppression of their 1952-1960 uprising.
'Uncomfortable truths'

The so-called "Emergency" period was one of the bloodiest insurgencies of the British empire and at least 10,000 people -- mainly from the Kikuyu tribe -- were killed, although some put the true figures much higher.

Tens of thousands more were rounded up and detained without trial in camps where reports of executions, torture and vicious beatings were common.

Kenyan President William Ruto called the British response to Kenya's quest for self-determination 'monstrous in its cruelty'

 © Luis Tato / AFP

Ruto said the Emergency "intensified the worst excesses of colonial impunity", and called the British response to Kenya's quest for self-determination "monstrous in its cruelty".

But he welcomed Charles' "courage and readiness to shed light on uncomfortable truths".

"Facing the Empire's dark past," was the headline in The Standard newspaper on Wednesday.

The Star said in an editorial that demands for reparations were "unrealistic", adding: "What can King Charles fix today?"

But it did suggest the monarch could help in the return of artefacts including the skull of a revered tribal leader who led a bloody resistance movement against colonial rule more than a century ago.

Kenya is where Queen Elizabeth -- then a princess -- learned in 1952 of the death of her father, King George VI, marking the start of her historic 70-year reign.

The royal programme in Nairobi and the port city of Mombasa is also focusing on efforts to tackle climate change, as well as support for creative arts, technology and youth.

© 2023 AFP

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