Hello friends! This episode is a dedication to you, who has walked this journey with me and my team for the last three years of creating Otherwise?! I am off to graduate school (The London School of Economics and Political Science) for a Masters in Public Policy and Administration, and I wanted to do one last episode before I left! :) This episode answers the questions many of you have asked me since the inception of Otherwise?. Thank you so much for coming on this journey with me. We will be ta...
Sep 19, 2019•14 min
The Constitution in Article 43, sub-article 1 (a) states that “Every person has the right to the highest attainable standard of health, which includes the right to healthcare services, including reproductive healthcare”. Article 43 sub-article 2 also states that a person shall not be denied emergency medical treatment. The Jubilee government, as part of its Big Four Agenda, plans to roll out universal health coverage to all Kenyans by 2022, guaranteeing quality and affordable healthcare to all K...
Sep 12, 2019•36 min
Human-wildlife conflict is a growing problem in Kenya today, and it has a huge negative impact on both human and wildlife populations. It happens when there is close interaction between wild animals and human beings, which leads to injury, death, predation and transmission of diseases. In February 2019, Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS) issued a notice to the public that the dry spell being experienced in most parts of the country was displacing wildlife from their traditional habitats in search of ...
Sep 05, 2019•44 min
The Constitution of Kenya (2010) in Article 46 gives consumers the right - to goods and services of reasonable quality; to the information necessary for them to gain full benefit from goods and services; to the protection of their health, safety, and economic interests; and to compensation for loss or injury arising from defects in goods or services. It states that parliament shall enact legislation to provide for consumer protection and for fair, honest and decent advertising (which is the Cons...
Aug 29, 2019•31 min
In a survey carried out by Women’s Empowerment Link (WEL) in 2015, in the wake of the #MyDressMyChoice protest in 2014, it was found that 54% of women had experienced gender based violence (physical, sexual or psychological harm) while using public transport. The women shared that they been harassed, with the abuse ranging from derogatory comments to rape. Many witnessed female passengers being stripped naked, but the female survivors neither received any help nor reported the violation, and the...
Aug 22, 2019•29 min
The conversation on cancer and other non-communicable diseases has taken centre stage after the death of high profile Kenyans in recent weeks – Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore, Bomet Governor Joyce Laboso, and Kibra MP Ken Okoth. According to the Ministry of Health, Kenya in undergoing an epidemiological transition marked by a decline in morbidity and mortality due to communicable conditions, and an increase in the burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which include diseases such as diabetes, ...
Aug 15, 2019•52 min
This week, we’re joined by Tayiana Chao, a digital heritage specialist and digital humanities scholar, of African Digital Heritage , the Museum of British Colonialism , Save the Railway and Skills 4 Culture to discuss the importance of having a digital cultural heritage for the African continent. What is the current situation in Kenya when it comes to cultural heritage? Why is it important to have conversations about cultural heritage in Kenya, especially at this moment? How do we ensure that th...
Aug 08, 2019•1 hr 3 min
This week, we're throwing it back to the old school format, where I take topic suggestions from the pod's community and address them in around 15 minutes. The first question is on foreign investors in Kenya. Should we set stricter criteria to attract quality investors and protect our SMEs? The second question asks what we as citizens can do to fight the Huduma Bill, and the final one asks about Mike Sonko’s behaviour at Ken Okoth’s funeral, and his blatant admission of guilt when he said that he...
Aug 01, 2019•15 min
On July 14th 2019, NTV aired a feature titled Red Alert, which revealed that Kenyan supermarkets and retail outlets were using sodium metabisulfite to increase the shelf life of meat products by making them look fresher for longer, so as to prevent losses. They were also found to repackage these products and change the dates so as to dupe their customers into buying these products past their sell-by date. The conversation that arose after was intense, pointing out that supermarkets were using ex...
Jul 25, 2019•40 min
On 27th June 2019, Kenya beat Tanzania 3-2 in the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), moving us to third place in Group C, right behind Algeria and Senegal. This renewed the conversation around sports reform in Kenya. This is the first time Kenya has qualified for AFCON since 2004. We're joined by Ng'arua Kamuya , a lawyer, advocate of the High Court of Kenya and sports pundit, for a fun chat on what we can do to reform sports in Kenya. Press play! Resources Dennis Ombachi's Thread Image Credit:...
Jun 27, 2019•38 min•Ep. 2
According to Kenya's Social Protection Policy, poverty, disease, and ignorance were identified at the time of independence in 1963 as the critical challenges facing the new nation of Kenya. While some degree of success has been achieved in the area of education, progress in reducing poverty and providing healthcare has barely been made. 56 years after independence, “poverty and vulnerability remain major challenges, with almost one in every two Kenyans trapped in a long-term, chronic and inter-g...
Jun 20, 2019•47 min
In June 2019, the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) announced that it would be phasing out the current generation KES 1,000 note by 1st October 2019. On that date, it will cease to be legal tender. This is in an effort to curb illicit financial transactions, including money laundering; address the problem of counterfeit notes; and fight corruption. They also announced new generation notes alongside the new KES 1,000 note (KES 50, 100, 200 and 500), but these do not have a deadline for exchange. Accord...
Jun 13, 2019•25 min
In our second live recording, we're joined by Njeri Gateru, Lorna Dias and Pastor David Ochar to discuss LGBTQI+ organizing in Kenya in light of the High Court ruling on the decriminalization of same sex conduct. On May 24th 2019, the High Court ruled against two petitions filed against the Attorney General of Kenya in his capacity as the government’s legal advisor: Petition 150 of 2016, and Petition 234 of 2016 , which had been consolidated by the court due to their similarity. The petitions so...
Jun 06, 2019•1 hr 24 min
Kenya’s maternal mortality rate is 362 deaths per 100,000 live births according to the 2014 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. Article 43(1)(a) of the Constitution of Kenya 2010 states that: Every person has the right to the highest attainable standard of health, which includes the right to health care services, including reproductive health care. Kenya adopted the Millennium Development Goals, which had set a target of reducing the global maternal mo...
May 30, 2019•36 min
We celebrate Labour Day/International Worker’s Day each year on the 1st of May. Celebrations are organized by trade unions and their members, and they take time to highlight the labour environment in the country, and how it can be improved. Trade unions in Kenya are inextricably linked with our struggle for independence. Makhan Singh is considered the father of the labour movement, having formed the Labour Trade Union of Kenya in 1935, and the East African Trade Union Congress in 1949. To mark t...
May 23, 2019•48 min
The Constitution of Kenya (2010) was promulgated almost nine years ago, on 27th August 2010. This was after it was presented to the Attorney General on 7th April 2010, officially published on 6th May 2010, subjected to a referendum on 4th August 2010, and approved by 68.55% of the people who participated in the referendum. We’re joined by Atsango Chesoni, former Deputy Chairperson of the Committee of Experts on Constitutional Review, to discuss how this constitution has changed Kenya almost nine...
May 16, 2019•1 hr 4 min
The Big 4 Agenda, unveiled on 12th December 2017, has identified manufacturing as one of its pillars (alongside universal healthcare, food security and affordable housing), with the goal of increasing its contribution to Kenya’s economy to 15% by 2022. The agenda has identified 8 priority sectors under its manufacturing pillar: agro-processing, textile, leather, construction, materials, oil and mining, iron and steel, and ICT. In recent years, according to the Kenya Association of Manufacturers ...
May 09, 2019•55 min
At the Paris Peace Forum in November 2018, Uhuru Kenyatta committed to Kenya’s transition to 100% green energy by 2020, noting that green energy made up 70% of Kenya’s installed electric capacity at the time. According to the Ministry of Energy, as at December 2018, Kenya had achieved 75% household access to electricity, through both on-grid and off-grid solutions, and we plan to achieve universal access to electricity by 2022. We’re joined by Anne Wambugu, an electrical engineer working in the ...
May 02, 2019•44 min
In January 1991, Mohammed Siad Barre’s government was toppled when rebels from the United Somali Congress toppled the Red Berets, in a culmination of a struggle that began in 1986. Since then, Somalia has been in a state of civil war. It has displaced over 1 million people within the country, and over 1 million more are living abroad in the Somali diaspora, either as registered refugees or undocumented migrants. We’re joined by Fadumo Dayib , a social justice activist, Somali politician and the ...
Apr 18, 2019•53 min
Mobile lending in Kenya has experienced a boom in recent years. Customers are able to apply for and receive loans through their mobile phones, and this has drastically changed Kenya’s financial landscape. Mobile lending is made possible through mobile money transfer technology, which was introduced in Kenya by Safaricom in 2007 via MPesa. There are three primary ways that it works: The first is bank backed, the second is mobile lending by non-bank finance institutions such as microfinance instit...
Apr 11, 2019•32 min
We hear a lot about fake news, but that is a very broad and misleading term. According to the Ethical Journalism Network, "fake news is information deliberately fabricated and published with the intention to deceive and mislead others into believing falsehoods or doubting verifiable facts." This term conflates three types of information disorder: misinformation, disinformation and malinformation. In the spirit of International Fact Checking Day, celebrated annually on April 2nd, we're joined by ...
Apr 04, 2019•58 min
On Tuesday the 26th of March 2019, the Standard reported that a three judge bench at the Court of Appeal, constituted by Justices Roselyn Nambuye, Daniel Musinga and Patrick Kiage, proposed that the age of consent be lowered to 16 by amending the Sexual Offences Act, citing lengthy jail terms imposed on young men convicted of defilement. We’re joined by Judy Gitau , the Africa Regional Co-ordinator of Equality Now to discuss consent, the age of consent, its importance, and the potential impact o...
Mar 28, 2019•44 min
Much of the conversation about global warming and climate change focuses on the Earth’s poles and the areas outside the tropics. We understand that ice caps and glaciers are melting. However, it is urgent that we understand the effects of global warming in the tropics in general, and at the equator in particular. Normal temperature ranges in the tropics fall within a narrower range than those outside them, so any change will have more significant effects. We’re joined by Jessica Mukiri, an Envir...
Mar 21, 2019•58 min
According to Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) and National Treasury reports in 2016, it was estimated that a third of Kenya’s national budget was lost through corrupt dealings annually. That would mean that in 2018/19, we can reasonably expect to lose KES 1 trillion, if not more, to corruption. Much of this money ends up in offshore accounts in countries that are tax havens. As at 2007, economists at the American research firm National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) estimated tha...
Mar 14, 2019•45 min
As part of its Big Four Agenda, the Jubilee government aims to focus on the provision of affordable housing units to be bought on mortgage by formally employed Kenyans. In the 2018/2019 budget, affordable housing received a provision KES 6.5 billion. By 2022, the government aims to have constructed 500,000 affordable housing units, with four types being available. The housing projects have been divided into five lots, with one lot covered in each financial year. Each lot is then broken down into...
Mar 07, 2019•42 min
Caroline Mwatha. Sharon Otieno. Mercy Keino. Fiona Kasuya. Mary Wambui. Beryl Adhiambo. These are some of the women we have lost to Kenya's femicide crisis, wither due to their work, or men in their lives. This week, we’re joined by Rachael Mwikali , the convenor of the Coalition for Grassroots Human Rights Defenders to discuss the work of human rights defenders in Kenya, with a focus on women, as well as Kenya’s femicide crisis. Resources #TotalShutdownKE #SayHerNameKE Missing Voices Kenya Houn...
Feb 28, 2019•31 min
In Kenya, according to the 2018 Economic Survey by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), diseases of the respiratory system are the leading cause of morbidity, followed by malaria. They accounted for 34% of all incidences in 2017, compared to malaria’s 18.7%. Kenya experiences 19,112 deaths annually because of air pollution, and of these, 6,672 are children. These are diseases such as pneumonia, tuberculosis and lung cancer, among others. The 2017 survey estimated that 19.9 million Ken...
Feb 21, 2019•41 min
Kenya is flagged as a source, transit, and destination country for persons subjected to forced labour and sex trafficking in East Africa by the Trafficking in Persons Report of 2018. We continue to host illegal recruiters who maintain networks in Uganda and Ethiopia. They recruit Kenyan, Rwandan, Ethiopian and Ugandan workers through fraudulent offers of employment in the Middle East and Asia. This happens despite a directive by the government to register all agencies linking Kenyans to employme...
Feb 14, 2019•44 min
Kenya is set to begin open field trials of GMO cotton in March 2019, following the approval for national performance trials by the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) in 2018. [In June 2018, it was reported that Kenya would start growing GMO cotton on a commercial basis in 2019.] This would make us the first in East Africa to grow GMOs in open fields, and fourth in Africa after South Africa, Burkina Faso and Sudan. BT cotton is among six crops that have been under confined field tri...
Feb 07, 2019•44 min
After 32 years of the 8-4-4 curriculum, the new 2-6-3-3-3 curriculum rolled out early in January 2019. Its goal is to provide quality education and training policies for all. It aims to improve access, quality, relevance and equity in line with international, regional and national policies, as well as legal commitments, and move us closer towards our education for all goals. It also aims to ensure that all learners acquire competencies and qualifications capable of promoting national values, ins...
Jan 31, 2019•53 min
