As Kenyans prepare for presidential elections in August, the government is cracking down on journalists, according to a new report. Many fear that the country could see the same widespread violence that left 1,200 people dead after the 2007 election.
The U.S. government this week suspended $21 million in aid funding to the Ministry of Health in Kenya over allegations of corruption.
The Disasters Emergency Committee said it raised £50 million in three weeks to support humanitarian aid for people in East Africa. While it is good news in the short term, there is concern that the constant cycle of these emergency appeals fails to help address underlying issues.
For this week’s Humanosphere podcast we’ll be speaking to Duncan Harvey, Save the Children’s country director in Kenya, about the impact of drought in the country. We’re speaking from Wajir, a border town near the Somali border in the far-east corner of Kenya – which is one of the worst affected.
For this Humanosphere podcast, we explore one community’s battle to end the practice of female genital mutilation, also known as female circumcision. Our Nairobi-based correspondent Charlie Ensor talks to Samuel Leadismo, founder of an organization known as the Pastoralist Child Foundation, in Samburu County, where female genital mutilation is thought to still be done on nearly all girls shortly before they reach puberty.
Conflict in the Horn of Africa and Great Lakes Region, along with increasingly authoritarian behavior by governments, has caused a rapid decline in human rights in countries across the region, a new report says. While authoritarianism appears on the rise in parts of the Western world as well, Amnesty International says this trend in Eastern Africa is particularly worrying.
The Kenyan high court has declared plans to close the world’s largest refugee camp and send more than 300,000 refugees to war-torn Somalia as “unlawful.”
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta signed a controversial election amendment into law on Monday, requiring back-up plans to count votes if electronic voting systems fail during the election in August, according to media reports.
Mobile money is more than a way to send and receive money. For some people, it is a path out of poverty – particularly for women. A new study in Kenya found that the M-PESA mobile money platform lifted 194,000 households out of poverty.
Kenya deported a high-profile refugee, James Gatdet Dak, spokesman for former Vice President and opposition leader Riek Machar, was deported to Juba, South Sudan, according to UNHCR, a day after a post on Facebook.