On Wednesday, April 24th, 2024, the Missing Voices Coalition launched its 2023 Annual Report focused on the theme "End Police Impunity" at the Heinrich Boell Foundation, Nairobi Office.
This marks the fourth report and a significant achievement for the Coalition since its inception. The report highlighted several key developments related to discussions on police impunity in the country for the year 2023. One major highlight was the reduction in extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances compared to the previous year. The report detailed a 9.2% decrease in extrajudicial killings, from 130 in 2022 to 118 in 2023, and a 54.5% decrease in enforced disappearances, from 22 in 2022 to 10 in 2023.
The 2022 report was launched on Friday 24th March 2023 , held in Yala, marked the launch of the Accountability report, shedding light on the Statistics and Trends of Extrajudicial Killings and Enforced Disappearances in the country. The launch included a panel discussion by partners and keynote addresses by distinguished guests that include Ambassadors from Germany, Britain, the United States, and the European Union.
Kenya is a growing market for pesticides. According to the Agrochemical Association of Kenya (AAK), pesticide imports more than doubled between 2015 and 2018. Sales data shows that 76 percent of the total volume of pesticides used in the country contain one or more active ingredients that are categorized as Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs). Pesticides are classified as highly hazardous if they pose serious health risks or irreversible damage to the environment. Their potential to cause cancer, disrupt hormonal and nervous systems, lead to genetic defects or harm unborn children, are among the list of human health concerns being raised by civil society organizations.
Published by the Society for International Development (SID) with the support of hbs, Nairobi Office, this booklet explores possible scenarios that could unfold in four Eastern African countries. The analysis and three stories presented imagine practical future scenarios for energy and how these would affect energy poverty in Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania.
This study is published in the framework of the transformAfrica program: Towards and ecological and social transformation in Africa. The study presents an analysis of the state of art of the energy efficiency in Kenya, in particular at the householder’s level, citizens and civil society actors.
Supported by the Heinrich Boell Foundation and coordinated by Nani Croze of Kitengela Glass, the Kenya Arts Diary has become a popular annual art exhibition in Nairobi, Kenya and identified with the Heinrich Boell Foundation. The diary has built a new physical but portable space whose multi-functionality allows local artists to display their craft, advertise their skills, join a regional network, and find belonging.
First published in 2011, the Kenya Arts Diary is a catalogue - complete with descriptors - of photography, installations, oils, acrylics, patch-work quilts, wood, cement and scrap metal sculptures, some from “stitched found objects”. The Diary also carries artists’ bios and a directory that provides artists’ contacts and announces the range of collectives and studios where contemporary artists pursue their passions.
The Hollywood action movie Black Panther captured the imagination of audiences around the globe. In several African countries, it quickly became the highest grossing film of all time. The tale is set in Wakanda, a technologically advanced African kingdom that avoided the shackles of colonialism and slavery by isolating itself behind a guise of poverty and deprivation. Although what it presents as “African”, in terms of narrative and images, is far from uncontested, the film catapulted Afrofuturism – a discipline or aesthetic that enlists science fiction and technology to imagine black identities and futures unconstrained by past and present circumstances – from the avant-garde circles of artists and intellectuals into the mainstream.
The current public debate on African migration to Europe is largely fuelled by visions of boats crossing the Mediterranean Sea, filled with desperate people in search of a better life. The narrative positions Africa as a “continent on the move” whose people are surging into Europe on a seemingly endless tide. Although media images of desperate African refugees fleeing to Europe do portray the daily reality and the often-tragic consequences of the treacherous crossing, the framing conceals more than it reveals.
This edition of Perspectives contributes to the ongoing debate on infrastructure development in Africa by sharing snapshots of experience from around the continent, exploring questions about democratic participation, the role of human and environmental rights, and economic transformation.
When you write about Africa, make sure to always include sad and starving characters, advises Kenyan author Binyavanga Wainana in his famously ironic essay “How to write about Africa”, which takes aim at Western prejudices. In the same way that everyday laughter has been excluded from all-too-familiar depictions of the continent, African humour and satire as a form of social and political engagement remains underexplored.
