Dialogue and Civic spaces

Are elections actually worth it? While, across the world, elections are often held up as a key marker of democratic participation and government legitimacy, many ordinary people are losing faith in them as a way of selecting their leaders.

Uganda is at a political and democratic crossroads. Despite being a nominal democracy, incumbent president Yoweri Museveni, who has been at the helm for 34 years, shows no intention of relinquishing power and increasingly relies on the military to overcome his waning popularity.

Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung (hbs) Nairobi Office, in collaboration with the Rift Valley Institute, cordially invites you to the 4th Election series virtual forum on; The Role of Civil Society in Managing and Mitigating Conflict in Ethiopia.

On 28 October 2020, the Rift Valley Institute in partnership with hbs will host the third webinar in its elections series to discuss Uganda’s election and the participation of women in electoral processes in Uganda.

In 2017, Parliament enacted the National Coroners' Service Act (NCS Act), providing the framework for investigation of reported deaths in Kenya.

For the highly indebted developing countries, the corona pandemic accelerates the debt crisis. An interview with Barbara Unmüßig from the Board of the Heinrich Böll Foundation about the latest developments.

On 25 March 2020, President Uhuru Kenyatta issued a nationwide dusk-to-dawn curfew (7pm-5am), exempting 13 groups of workers offering essential services in order to contain the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in Kenya. Incidences of  police brutality  while enforcing the curfew were reported across Kenya.

In May last year, the Africa Centre for Open Governance (AfriCOG) published State Capture – Inside Kenya’s Inability to Fight Corruption, a report that hit the country like a meteor. Perspectives spoke to Gladwell Otieno, AfriCOG’s director and long-time anti-corruption campaigner, about what motivated them to take a fresh view in the analysis of corruption, and what this means for civil-society action.

This edition was compiled by Heinrich Böll Foundation’s North Africa and the Transform Africa project. It is dedicated to the emerging conversation of alternative approaches that challenge the historical bias towards the industrialisation of agriculture and the food system as the main strategy to address food insecurity while preparing for a +2°C world.