Its About Public Policy, Stupid!

The abortion debate is heating up. Here, Gathara looks at the consequences of back door abortions and asks that Kenyans look at abortion not through a narrow morality lens, but as a matter of public policy.

Open Thread: Discussing the 'Yes' and 'No' Campaigns on the Proposed Constitution

Everyone it seems agrees that the proposed constitution is far from perfect, even defective. The contention is whether or not those defects are of such a fundamental nature as to render the document unacceptable, even worse than the status quo.

What is your informed opinion of the draft? Is it better than the current document and in what ways? Also, what are the social, economic and political costs of replacing the old one? Are we discarding an unsavory part of our history and if so, are we doomed to repeat it? Discuss in comments below.

The East Africa Community: in our hearts and minds

Oscar Wilde once described economists as people who know the price of everything but the value of nothing. The same might be said of the politicians at the centre of the East African Community’s seemingly inexorable journey to the promised land of monetary and political union.

Like most other currency unions, this is a political enterprise. That in itself is not a bad thing. Dr. Gerard Lyons, Chief Economist at Standard Chartered, observes that politics was the driving force behind European monetary integration, which, despite the current problems with Greece, has been pretty successful.

According to Dr. Lyons, historically there have been four types of monetary unions. The first category has solid political unions that have ensured the monetary union's success. Examples include German Unification at the end of the last century; the longer lasting Italian Monetary Union which followed political unification in 1861; and the US Federal Reserve, established in 1913 as a decentralized system.

Patrick Gathara on understanding the East Africa community, and looking to the future.

Abortion Mustn't Be Legalized

Isn't it amazing that one hundred per cent of all the people advocating for the legalization of abortion were born? You see, the debate on the legalization of abortion is very selfish. It's the only battle where the victim (read unborn child) is never consulted.

Keep reading. 

Kenya's 100 People

If Kenya was reduced to a village of 100 people, 22 of those people would be Kikuyu, 14 would be Luhya, and 13 would be Luo.

Of the remaining, 11 would be Kamba, 6 Kisii, 6 Meru, 15 of other African tribes, and 1 Asian/European. Only 1 would be Maasai. 10 people live in Nairobi, 3 in Mombasa and almost 2 in Kisumu.

Read more from Nanjala Nyabola here.

New aid; the change in development assistance to Africa

Change is afoot across the African continent and even where it is slow in coming, there's evidence all around of a new generation of Africans -- entrepreneurial and inventive who are shaping a brighter future for the their communities. Jacqueline Novogratz explains a new path to development assistance, one which leads only in facilitation, providing investment rather than traditional aid.


Read More and watch the video here.

Legalise Abortion in Kenya

Abortion is illegal in Kenya. The Kenyan penal code criminalizes it, promising stiff punishment to those who practice it.

This effectively means that any woman or girl lucky enough to survive a backstreet (which they usually are) abortion ordeal, and who is subsequently found out by the authorities, risks getting hauled off to court where society will condemn her further for breach of what many legal intellectuals increasingly view as a moral wrong (an offence in the same league as say adultery or premarital sex, for those countries with secular legal regimes, which nevertheless still punish these).

Atieno Ochieng' on a discussion about decriminalizing abortion. Read here.