The World Bank has approved US$120.6 million (Sh8.68 billion) aid to Kenya under its trade and transport facilitation project. The project will fund implementation of the East African Community Customs Union and provide institutional backing for transport. Finance ministry Permanent Secretary Joseph Kinyua said the funding, approved last month, would make it cheaper for businesses to operate in the country through improved transport network and simpler customs procedures. Kenya got the lion's share of the US$184 million World Bank's kitty for the three East African countries, with Uganda receiving US$26.4 million and Tanzania US$37 million.

Reports about the housing situation in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, often focus on the lack of proper places to stay - particularly in the massive slum of Kibera, where tens of thousands live in appalling conditions. However, there are also areas of the city where too many residential properties are being built - or at least, being built too quickly. Development here is outstripping the provision of water, electricity and sewerage systems. And the result, greater numbers of people relying on limited infrastructure, is seen as a recipe for disaster.

Daggers are drawn ahead of the state reopening of parliament after a five-month recess, one of the longest in Kenya's history. Cabinet ministers and government-friendly MPs dug in to do battle with an opposition that has sworn to scuttle the state agenda in the house. Parliament is deeply divided over corruption - specifically, the Sh7 billion twin Anglo Leasing scandals - the stalled Constitution review, the raid on the Standard Group and presence of alleged mercenaries in the country.

Kenya's former ethics permanent secretary John Githongo now says there is more on the Anglo Leasing scandal that is yet to be revealed. "It's not over. It's just starting. Right now about 30 per cent has come out," Mr Githongo said of the mega-corruption scandal that has shaken the Narc Government to its very core, forcing the resignation of two Cabinet ministers. He made the revelation during an interview with The New York Times, which was published on Saturday. In a separate interview with The Guardian, Githongo called on the UK authorities to launch a full investigation into a number of British businessmen, whose multi-million dollar contracts are at the centre of Kenya's latest corruption scandal.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is seeking to broaden its donor base to meet increasing needs. The deputy high commissioner of UNHCR, Wendy Chamberlin, said the agency was suffering financial stress owing to the rising needs. Chamberlin, on a tour of East Africa, was accompanied by five top executives of leading trans national corporations.

Britain has thrown its weight behind recent decisions by international lenders to delay aid to Kenya. High commissioner Adam Wood said Britain was a key partner of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) and would, therefore, support their conditions. The Bretton Woods institutions have withheld the funding to press the Government to act tougher on corruption and reforms. At the weekend, World Bank country director Collin Bruce said Kenya stood to miss out on close to Sh15 billion in aid if it did not speed up economic reforms.

Kenya's cabinet ministers mentioned in the Ndung'u Report on Land have been asked to relinquish title deeds to the Government. They were also told to report to Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission to beat the 30-day amnesty issued by the Commission's director or face prosecution. Among the ministers named in the report were Njenga Karume and Suleiman Shakombo. The issue was raised by Justice Minister, Martha Karua, at a Government of National Unity (GNU) Parliamentary Group Meeting chaired by President Kibaki.

The European Union has defended the on-going Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) negotiations with 16 east and southern African countries. EU head of delegation to Kenya, Eric Van der Linden, has urged African policy makers to view the talks as a trade and development tool. "The EPAs are the only means of maintaining the long standing relationship with the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries dating back to the Lome conventions," Van der Linden told negotiators from the region meeting in Nairobi. Under the Lome Convention, 79 former colonies of major European countries enjoy preferential access to the EU market.

The United Nations food agency says it has been forced to reduce food aid rations to some 230,000 Somali and Sudanese refugees living in two camps in remote areas of eastern and northeastern Kenya as a result of insufficient funding. The ration cuts for refugees in Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps come as WFP struggles to raise US $170 million for its operation to feed 3.5 million Kenyans affected by severe drought.

Kenya could be heading for a political climate similar to that in the early nineties should the opposition make good its threat to force early elections in the wake of commando-style attacks on the Standard Group, East Africa's oldest media organisation. Leading lights of the Orange Democratic Movement, which organised demonstrations in support of the media last Tuesday, are confident that there will be no going back until the government calls for early elections before the scheduled date of 2007.

President Kibaki launched an awareness campaign driven by the National Anti-Corruption Steering Committee last week. The agency, which seeks to change Kenyans' attitudes towards corruption, was launched in 2004 but has only recently embarked on public activities. SUNDAY NATION interviewed its executive director, Mr Polycarp Ochilo.

About three decades ago, Kenya sent its first batch of soldiers to a war-torn country on a peacekeeping mission. The soldiers were sent to Chad under the auspices of the then Organisation of African Unity (OAU), currently the African Union (AU). Since then, more than 14,000 Kenyan troops have served as peacekeepers, particularly with the United Nations, in Africa and beyond. With 1,356 soldiers currently abroad under UN command, Kenya is ranked the 13th contributor in the world in terms of size of troop deployments.

The successful applicant will provide technical assistance and support to the Making Medical Injections Safer Behavior Change Communications Officers in 4 to 6 sub-Saharan African countries. S/he will help plan, implement, and evaluate behavior change strategies aimed at changing the behaviour of health care workers and patients.

Monica Amolo's tale is one of endurance and determination: she is intent on being elected to Kenya's parliament, regardless of the intimidation experienced en route. Since trying to contest a legislative seat in western Kenya four years ago, Amolo told IPS, she has met with various forms of harassment. These range from being told that a woman's place is in the kitchen and accusations that she is a prostitute - to physical violence, and even death threats.

Invasive bacterial infections are a significant cause of childhood illness and death worldwide. But clinical officers and doctors in African hospitals have few resources to diagnose and treat seriously ill children. Research in Kenya shows that simple rules based on current World Health Organisation guidelines effectively target antibiotic treatment.

The African Research and Resource Forum (ARRF) is a non-profit, non-governmental, research, resource, reflection and discourse organization devoted to enhancing thinking on African development. The ARRF invites you to a Public Debate on “Why Corruption Continues Unabated: The Real ‘Speed Governors’ in the war against Graft in Kenya”. The event is scheduled for Thursday 16th March 2006 from 5.00 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. at the Kenya National Theatre Auditorium.

Computer Aid International is seeking to appoint two new Africa Programme Officers based in their Nairobi office but travelling widely in the region to serving existing and potential new partners in West and Central Africa.

Writer Betty Caplan reports on a unique dance style that blends classical ballet, Spanish and Oriental flavours and traditional African dances to honour, celebrate, imitate and poke fun at the gloriously beautiful but vain flamingos of Kenya’s Lake Nakuru. What makes dance funny? I found myself musing on this question as I watched Kenya Performing Arts Group’s performance of ‘Flamingo Flamenco’ during the weekend of February 3-4, 2006 at the Village Market auditorium (not a place to enhance any kind of art at all – a soulless construction without even the basic facilities for artists.) The work, choreographed by Israeli Miriam Rother, takes a look at a flamboyant, gloriously beautiful but vain African bird, the flamingo. In a series of dances, the performers honour, imitate and poke fun at the Flamingo of Lake Nakuru. En masse, by the side of Kenya’s famous soda lake, it is a unique sight.

Is it fair to talk about a film I haven’t seen?

That depends. Is the film The Constant Gardener? Then one might argue that it fails, as every Western film set in Africa has failed, to treat the continent as anything other than backdrop to the main story. The main story, it goes without saying, is the drama of the white people.

A few years ago, I borrowed a set of rules from brilliant American cartoonist, Alison Bechdel. In one of her Dykes To Watch Out For cartoon strips, she has a character say:

"I don't go to a movie unless:

1) It has at least two women in it, who
2) Talk to each other, about
3) Something other than the man in the movie."

I tweaked that for my Africa-films filter. Any film set in, and ostensibly about, Africa has to:

1) Have at least 2 African characters in it.
That's characters. Servants, waiters, extras, are not characters.
2) The two African characters have to talk to each other, about
3) Something other than the white protagonist(s) in the film

I avoided seeing The Constant Gardener because none of my friends who saw it could vouch that it met my 3 rules. Each snippet I came across about it fed my conviction that it would only irritate me beyond belief. Like hearing how the Western actors had been “shocked beyond belief” by the poverty of Nairobi slums. Like actress Rachel Weisz, describing the beauty of “Lake Magadi covered with flamingos.” There are no flamingos at Lake Magadi, Rachel. That’s Lake Nakuru.

Last Sunday night, Rachel Weisz won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in The Constant Gardener. In her speech, she paid tribute to the brilliance of her director, the John Le Carre novel the film was based on, and reeled off the customary list of personal thanks. She did not mention Africa, Kenya, or Kenyans. She did not even hint at the supposed central theme of the film – giant pharmaceuticals testing drugs on impoverished Africans.

It would appear, then, that it’s perfectly possible – in fact, the norm – to make a film that claims to be about Africa, shoot it in Africa, market it with relentless repetition of the word “Africa”, without actually seeing Africa. Or Africans. I see no reason not to accord such a film the same invisibility when I write of it.

* Shailja Patel is a Kenyan Indian poet and spoken word artist. Visit

* Send comments to [email protected]

Kenya should ignore donor restrictions and employ health workers needed urgently countrywide, an assistant minister has said. The country needs 10,000 health workers to offer improved services, Health assistant minister Enock Kibunguchy said. "We have to put our foot down and employ. We can tell the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to go to hell," Kibunguchy said.