The Government has spent the equivalent of US $16 million in the fight corruption, the Justice and Constitutional Affairs ministry has said. In a status report released to donor agencies, the ministry cited prosecution of 14 former heads of parastatals as one of the milestones realised in the war against corruption. "Cases being prosecuted included those of directors of Euro Bank, NHIF, NSSF, Postal Corporation of Kenya, Kenya Post Office Savings Bank, and the Pyrethrum Board of Kenya," the statement said.

Despite the Millennium Development Goal of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, chronic urban poverty is rising. This leaves most slum dwellers unable to access formal housing finance they need to continue to occupy or improve their houses. Few housing initiatives exist to help them generate the income and savings they otherwise require. A new integrated approach for developing a sustainable shelter delivery strategy may offer the urban poor some alternatives to securing adequate housing.

Several hundred Kenyan women who say they were raped by British soldiers based in the country are taking their case to the United Nations. Their lawyer Joyce Majiwa has accused the Kenyan and UK authorities of not taking adequate action to help them. The women, mostly from the Samburu and Masai tribes, are seeking millions of pounds in compensation.

More than one million children in urban slums and arid areas are still out of school. A joint donor statement released in Nairobi last Thursday says the Government has a daunting task in ensuring the children receive education. Widespread poverty has pushed the children out of school, and they spend the day doing domestic chores at the expense of education, says the report.

With the publication of Thelathini, Thirty Faces, Thirty Facets of Contemporary Art in Kenya, one might say, it is the first time that an acknowledgement has been made, that there is something worth knowing about the people who create art in Kenya and how they do what they do. Has the time come when indeed, we have moved from mere recognition of the existence of our artists to the point where one can be an authority on them?

Doctors of the World-USA seeks public health professional to lead field-based implementation of a new project in the West Pokot District of Kenya. Duties include working with HQ program leadership and in-country partners; establishing DOW operations in Western Kenya, including overseeing human resources, facilities, and financial operations issues; and leading project activities in close cooperation with a Kenyan clinician.

Kenyan authorities must take immediate action to halt numerous human rights violations committed against suspects detained during recent "anti-terrorism" operations, Amnesty International said this week. In a new report presented at a news conference in Nairobi, the organisation gave details of extensive violations including arbitrary arrest, incommunicado detention without charge, torture and harassment of family members. The human rights violations occurred during "anti-terrorism" operations conducted since the 2002 bombing of a hotel near Mombasa that killed 15 people.

Kenya's Attorney General Amos Wako led the official delegation that presented Kenya's second periodic report to the United Nations Human Rights Committee on the status of human rights in Kenya under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The first issue the Committee raised was grand endemic corruption. The Committee was concerned that corruption affects the whole of society and compromises the ability to enjoy all other rights. The Committee wanted to find out whether the government was worried about donors pulling out. The Committee further wanted to be enlightened on what the government was doing to fight corruption.
* Read East African Standard comment on the human rights situation in Kenya at http://www.eastandard.net/hm_news/news.php?articleid=15871

A group of conservationists are hoping to keep a track on the elephants in the Samburu National Park in northern Kenya, by using mobile phones, so they can send SMS messages giving their latest location through a SIM card that is fitted after an elephant has been sedated.

Last year, communities in Maai Mahiu and Kajiado lost at least 140 animals after they sprayed them with chemicals bought from unscrupulous suppliers. Now, investigations reveal that the safety and quality of agro-vet chemicals in Kenya could be compromised following allegations of corruption at the Pest Control Products Board. A clique comprising officials who have been at the board for decades are said to demand as much as $5,000 (about Sh400,000) as inducement to register an agrochemical product and give it the nod to be offered for sale.

Kenyan police have arrested nine people and used tear gas and water cannons in running battles with protesters before the opening of parliament. Some 200 people were waving placards demanding a referendum on a new draft constitution which would limit the president's powers. President Mwai Kibaki has formally opened what is expected to be a stormy parliamentary session.

The distribution this Thursday (March 17) of more than Kshs. 1.1 Million (US$14,700) in initial seed grants to ten public primary schools in Kenya will mark the implementation phase of a School Safe Zones initiative intended to eventually embrace all public schools across the nation. Widely heralded free primary education in Kenya, introduced two years ago, is now facing its own set of challenges, including classroom congestion, lack of learning materials and desks, low teacher motivation, insecurity and drug abuse. But the government of Kenya, the global humanitarian agency Church World Service and a national task force of Kenyan educators, parents, religious leaders and other public and private sector stakeholders have been working together for nearly two years to create sustainable solutions for those problems.

Despite the official satisfaction expressed at end of the meeting, several of the 33 WTO members which attended the latest in the series of Mini-Ministerial meetings in Mombasa, from 2- 4 March, left privately worried about the chances of WTO making real progress on the issues at stake in time for the Hong-Kong Ministerial Conference of the WTO, reports Karin Gregow of EcoNews Africa in the latest edition of Africa Trade Agenda, a publication of Third World Network-Africa. "The ministers also left behind them scores of members of grass-root organisations still facing charges following their arrest when their attempt to manifest their concerns were disrupted by Kenyan police." Read the full story by visiting http://twnafrica.org/tradeagenda.asp

The Kenyan education system, as evident in the English curriculum, is still preying on colonial ambivalence and imperial mimicry more than 40 years after ‘independence’, writes A. Kiprono Langat. "The lack of innovative measures to locate literature within the context on the new ‘Kenya’, the politicization of the process of text selections, and the lack of proper representation of teachers in the choice of curriculum texts has impacted significantly on the teachers’ fear of losing the desire, psychologically or otherwise, for their teaching obligations. Most literature teachers in Kenya seem to have lost (either consciously or unconsciously) their professional attachments to the curriculum material they teach," he writes.

"One may argue that neocolonial dominancy of the ‘haves’ over the ‘have not’, be it within the education(al) structures, the book publishing firms and/or the political/tribal party politics, has produced and reproduced sycophantic hegemonies that have and will continue to adversely affect teachers’ teaching desires of prescribed classroom texts." Langat is conducting research into literature set books in Kenya and is appealing for input from readers.

Fifteen women's organisations accused the Government of failing to fulfill its election pledges yesterday. The civil society organisations said the Government had no commitment to fighting corruption and poverty, saying it instead hindered the full realisation of women's potential. The accusations have come as women celebrate the International Women's Day that has been marked since 1857 to celebrate achievements in women's rights and freedoms. Speaking at a press conference attended by representatives of the organisations, Ageng'o said the Draft Constitution held numerous gains for women yet no efforts were being made to ensure it was passed in Parliament. Agen'go said rampant corruption continued to manifest itself in the Government, leaving women the most affected.

The Coalition on Violence against Women (COVAW) engages chiefs and other local leaders to become women’s rights advocates and resources for victims. The program was formed because of the lack of women’s rights advocates for women who have been subjected to violence. Women who have been abused usually turn either to local hospitals/clinics or to their chiefs. However, none of these groups were able to adequately meet the women’s needs and the Coalition on Violence Against Women wanted to change this. Visit the New Tactics in Human Rights website to view the full story.

“The exclusive group of WTO members meeting this week in Mombasa, must put development at the forefront of their talks, if the Doha Round will live up to its name of a ‘Development Round’”, warns Peter Aoga from EcoNews Africa. As the power games of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) move to Kenya for a few days, hundreds of workers, farmers, students and other representatives from civil society are gathering at a public meeting in Nairobi to raise their demands on the key contentious issues in the negotiations.

Family Health International works closely with senior research staff to develop, implement, monitor, manage and/or analyze complex and other research studies; and designs research management systems. Visit http://www.fhi.org or email [email protected] for more information.

President Mwai Kibaki has pleaded with donors for more time to fight corruption, saying the war against graft was on course. He said the Government had taken firm steps to deal with corruption by establishing institutions to combat the vice. The process of investigating and prosecuting culprits is slow, the President said, but this did not mean the Government has reneged its pledge of zero tolerance to corruption.

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki shuffled his cabinet on Monday, just days after western donors had urged his government to act on reports of corruption and bad governance. In a statement announcing that two permanent secretaries had been dropped, the president said the changes were aimed at improving government service delivery, accountability and efficiency, and called for greater transparency and speedy implementation of social programmes.