Author: Kimani Chege

I am confident that Africa will continue to be a leader, in drawing on its historical experience, in building resilient, pluralistic, economically-strong, and environmentally sound communities, rooted in solid values and communal support structures that societies in the West and elsewhere will admire and emulate in years to come.

Kenya is expected to host several leaders of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) during the 9th ACP Summit of Heads of State and Government. The Summit is themed “A Transformed ACP: Committed to Multilateralism” and will be preceded by Ministerial Sessions from 6 to 8 December at the same venue. The Summit comes at a time when ACP Group prepares to finalize the Post-Cotonou negotiations as well as the revision to its Constitutive Act, the Georgetown Agreement. At the 110th Session of the ACP Council of Ministers which will precede the Summit, Ministers will appoint the next Secretary-General for…

It only happened in October, but the  Eliud Kipchoge, marathon run that beat the sub-two-hour INEOS 1:59 marathon challenge garnered the most views in Kenya in 2019. This highlighted the significance of patriotism and the power of sports in uniting a nation.  The list of most-watched videos are contained in YouTube Rewind Kenya, a review of Kenya’s biggest YouTube stars, trends, and moments of the year. The Ethiopian Airlines B737 MAX crashed after takeoff route to Nairobi from Addis Ababa was the major global aviation story in 2019. This also raised much attention of Kenyan viewers also raising an issue with…

Facebook, the global internet giant has partnered with Kenya’s Aga Khan University Graduate School of Media and Communications (GSMC), to launch “The Video Journalism Fellowship” an initiative that aims to bolster digital skills in journalism to increase the production of Kenyan stories captured through high-quality mobile video. The fellowship will achieve this by training qualified Kenyan storytellers on digital mobile journalism and attaching them to local Kenyan newsrooms. The Video Journalism Fellowship is designed to equip Kenyan newsrooms with new digital media resources while training digital, mobile & video storytellers for six months through a real-life immersion into the practice of…

 Political goodwill and health advocacy programs have proven successful in reducing the number of teenage pregnancies in Kenya’s coastal region. This emerged at the Adolescent and Youth Health and Wellbeing Symposium in Kenya’s Kwale County organized by the Aga Khan University. According to the Ministry of Health, there has been a decline in cases of teenage pregnancy in Kenya – from 404, 763 cases in 2018 to 326,072 as at October 2019. This holds promise for the girls at the Coast, which has been known to have the highest prevalence of teenage pregnancies in the country. “We have since a…

Ethiopia’s most vulnerable families are set to benefit from a new US$451 million project to increase their resilience to climate shocks in the country’s poorest regions. A financing agreement for the Lowlands Livelihood Resilience Project was signed today by Gilbert F. Houngbo, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and Zenebu Tadesse Woldetsadik, Ambassador, Permanent Representative of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Agencies in Rome. The funding includes a $90 million loan from IFAD and $350 million in co-financing from the International Development Association (80 per cent loan and 20 per…

In the course of the year, Mary Muthoni Muriuki has interacted with the high and mighty across the East African region and beyond in her quest to push for women to be fully involved in businesses. Her journey has seen her interact with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni as well as other leaders in Africa. Mary is the CEO and president of the Kenyan based Women In Business (WIB) and she acknowledges that her quest to put focus on women affairs and how they engage in business has not been easy but quite rewarding. Each year, Mary and Women in Business…

The 39th Meeting of the EAC Council of Ministers has approved the Final Draft Cotton, Textiles and Apparels (CTA) Strategy and its Implementation Roadmap. The strategy whose vision is to have “An integrated and globally competitive cotton, textiles and apparels industry,” makes a critical analysis of the CTA sector along the following key levels of the value chain: Cotton Seed (Production); Seed Cotton (Ginning); Cotton lint (Spinning); Yarn Weaving/Knitting/Printing/Dyeing/Finishing), and; Fabrics (Garments/Apparels/Fabrication/Manufacturing) level. The 39th Council which was chaired by Rwanda’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Regional Cooperation and East African Community Affairs, Amb. Olivier Nduhungirehe, was attended by line Ministers from all…

The East African Community has marked its 20th Anniversary with pomp and fanfare at its Headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania. This comes as the community mulls over the inclusion of The Democratic Republic of Congo into the community, which would not only give the community a major population rise but also a coast to coast linking both the East African coast and the West African coast. Though the considerations are yet to be approved, policy analysts believe this move is a matter of when not if. However, there is still contention on whether to include the East most country, Somalia which has…

In March of 2013, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced the commencement of a grant competition to facilitate innovative companies to develop condoms of the future. The idea was to develop the next-generation condom that significantly preserves or enhances pleasure, in order to improve uptake and regular use,” according to the foundation’s Global Grand Challenges website. The most promising designers would score $100,000 in seed funding, plus a chance at an additional $1 million to further finance their projects. Years down the line, none of the recipients has come up with a condom worth noting. Only around 5% of men worldwide…