From a life of crime to youth groups with local jobs – how young men are initiating urban development in the city's Mathare slum Gangs in Nairobi's notorious Mathare slum are attempting to reform as they struggle to survive in an environment that offers limited opportunities for young men. According to the anthropologist Naomi Van Stapele, men living in Mathare tend to have less social and economic...
Kenyan writer tells Eliza Anyangwe why west's notion of 'development' and its jargons fail to capture the reality of Africa Mona Mahmood Eliza Anyangwe ...
My friend, the social anthropologist PTW (Paul) Baxter, who has died aged 89, made a significant contribution to western understanding of the Oromo peoples of northern Kenya and Ethiopia and championed their culture, which was frequently denigrated by colonial and local elites. His work on the plight of the Ethiopian Oromo became a standard text in Oromo studies and a rallying point for the Oromo...
Historians invited but media and public barred from event explaining how millions of records will be put into public domain The UK Foreign Office is holding a conference to explain how it will finally place into the public domain millions of public records that it has unlawfully held for decades – but is refusing to allow members of the public to attend. Selected historians and archivists have been...
Impact of Department for International Development schemes acknowledged but report urges action on corruption and abuse A government watchdog has called on the Department for International Development (DfID) to do more to improve the quality of care at Kenyan health facilities after recording patient complaints of petty corruption and "physical and emotional abuse" by staff. In a report published...
Documentary film-maker and political activist best known for Blacks Britannica and Occupied Palestine The Oscar-nominated documentary-maker and political activist David Koff, who has died aged 74, was remarkable in that his work made waves on four continents. Best known in Britain for his film Blacks Britannica (1978), which portrayed the UK as a profoundly racist society, he also caused controversy...
s search takes him through dwindling communities of hunter-gatherers and extraordinary initiation ceremonies. Two of the women have settled in homesteads, sprawling urban developments having squeezed the territories of tribes and made an itinerant life almost impossible. Various tragedies have befallen some of the others. Hook first encountered the women in the mid-1980s, when he was looking for an...
s blatantly unfair Spain has learned the hard way that designing a federal system of government to accomplish equity goals is exceedingly difficult. And countries wrestling with how to fund various levels of governance – which is to say most of them – should take heed. Only 35 years ago, Spain emerged from one of the 20th century's most enduring dictatorships and created a strong democracy. Today,...
s Yarmouk camp shock the world, our expert panel explores the ways the development community can go beyond meeting basic needs in refugee camps • Put innovation at the heart of refugee protection work Emily Arnold-Fernandez, executive director, Asylum Access , California, USA Hosting refugees in communities is more cost-effective: Research we're currently working on shows that costs for hosting refugees...
brainwashing' in China and recruitment quotas for Irish speakers Ghana: former chief of staff recommends cutting half of public service staff Ghana should sack half its public servants and pay the rest better , said a former chief of staff Kwadwo Okyere Mpiani. The government spends a large proportion of tax revenue on the public wage bill, and the civil service is criticised as being bloated. Looking...
s invisible public transit planners. Nairobians have a complex relationship with this homegrown system: it elicits admiration – whole websites are devoted to matatu art and culture – but also anger, with frequent editorials in the papers about the "matatu menace". Nearly everyone agrees that it needs to be better regulated and planned. The question is how. The government, meanwhile, is planning many...
s only public treatment facility sleep on benches and concrete floors outside the hospital to save money for their treatment. Others never make it to the capital for assistance because they cannot afford the bus journey. Now, a vaccination programme has been rolled out, offering hope for future generations. "Cervical cancer vaccine now available for girls in primary school free of charge!" reads the...
s Aberdare mountains, has a conservative streak that many farmers would recognise. Tales of bankrupted smallholders who lost their land to bad loans are common here, as are woeful stories of farmers swindled by corrupt co-operatives. "I was afraid of borrowing money as I heard that farms are repossessed when you can't pay," the father of six admits. "So I never used credit before." Gachacha was persuaded...
I am a homosexual, Mum', it caused a sensation – and has placed him at the heart of the African debate on gay rights Binyavanga Wainaina made his name with a short and celebrated satire called " How to Write About Africa ". It was the perfect anti-primer for any would-be "dark continent correspondent", skewering every cliche under the vast, red, setting savannah sun: "Always use the words 'Africa'...
The best photography in news, culture and sport from around the world this week Jim Powell ...
Discarded plastic shoes litter beaches across the world, but environmental project transforming them into animal ornaments and jewellery has seen sales soar ...
s artisan manufacturing company, Ocean Sole, turned about 50 tonnes of dirty, discarded and damaged flip-flops into animal ornaments and jewellery in 2013. She anticipates doubling that amount this year, and will pay 25p per kilo to whoever brings them in. In Kenya, where plastic flip-flops cost a dollar, beaches are littered not just with broken and battered domestic varieties but with flip-flops...
s population projected to increase by 6.7% a year to seven million by 2025. And if temperatures rise in East Africa, as climate change models indicate they might, that could mean less rainfall and more evaporation. Diageo, which runs water initiatives on the continent as part of its operations anyway, decided this potential scenario required a more substantial response. One that involved working with...
s new constitution outlawing discrimination against homosexuals, Thabo Mbeki, then vice-president under Nelson Mandela, declared: "I know that none dare challenge me when I say - I am an African!" But it appears that some on the continent would like to take him up on that. Recently the Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan, signed into law a bill that outlawed gay marriage, public displays of same-sex...
s new stricter laws to protect wildlife as horn is hacked off the animal in heavily guarded sanctuary Poachers have slaughtered a rhino in a heavily guarded national park near Nairobi in a brazen attack that flouts severe new wildlife crime laws aimed at stemming a surge of such killings. The shooting of elephants and rhinos for their ivory and horns has risen in Kenya in recent years and a new report...