The tragic loss of Kelvin Kiptum Cheruiyot, a beacon of hope and an unmatched talent in the realm of long-distance running, deeply saddens us all. His death in a road accident is not only an overwhelming loss for the global youth he inspired but also a stark reminder of the urgent need for enhanced road safety measures. Kelvin’s groundbreaking achievements and the legacy of determination he leaves behind urge us to protect the dreams and lives of future generations with more vigilant road safety efforts.

In mourning our champion’s untimely departure, we extend our heartfelt condolences to his family, friends, and admirers worldwide. His spirit, dedication, and the extraordinary path he blazed serve as a lasting inspiration. May we honor his memory by advocating for safer roads, ensuring his legacy endures in the hearts of those who follow in his footsteps. Rest in peace, Kelvin you remain an asset to mankind!

Isaac Kalua Green – Party Leader – Green Thinking Action Party

NAIROBI, Kenya Dec 24 – Former President Uhuru Kenyatta spent time with children at various children homes where he shared Christmas goodies.

Photos shared on social media shows the cheerful Kenyatta playing with babies as he distributed Christmas gifts.

He distributed goodies at Mama Fatuma Goodwill Children’s Home in Gatundu and Children’s Garden home and School in Uthiru just outside the capital Nairobi.

Kenyatta has kept a relatively low profile since leaving office in August, and mainly focuses on peace initiatives in the DRC and Ethiopia as the regional peace envoy.

Kenyatta left office in August 2022, after serving as president for two terms.

He handed over to his deputy William Ruto who won the election, defeating Kenyatta’s preferred successor Raila Odinga who suffered a humiliating defeat which he unsuccessfully challenged at the Supreme Court.

Kenyans have been urged to accept whatever decision will come from the Supreme Court verdict on the presidential election petition.

Azimio presidential candidate Raila Odinga has challenged the electoral commission’s declaration of UDA’s William Ruto as the president-elect.

Wednesday, Green Thinking Action Party (GTAP) leader Isaac Kalua called on Kenyans to remain tolerant and accommodate the Supreme Court’s decision due on Monday, September 5.

Dr Kalua said the prevailing peace is good for stability, revival of the economy and handling the rising cost of living.

“There is need for peace and harmony even after the decision of the Supreme Court. The prevailing peace and tolerance must continue for Kenya to heal and move forward,” he said.

He spoke during the funeral of Mzee Kisyoka Nguthu in Muthetheni, Machakos County. The late Nguthu was the father of renowned Kenyan cardiologist Dr Philip Kisyoka and died at the age of 102.

Kalua noted that when there is peace, every Kenyan is a winner despite their political differences. He also prevailed upon politicians to exercise restraint and use uniting language as the presidential petition is determined by the Supreme Court. He said his Green Thinking Action Party will root for accountable and transparent leadership from the incoming government after President Uhuru Kenyatta’s term ends.


Credits: Standard Group

Kenya will next month host The Africa Climate Week (ACW 2023), one of four Regional Climate Weeks held this year to build momentum ahead of the United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference COP 28 in Dubai.

The ACW 2023 to be co-hosted by the Kenya government and African Union Commission will be organised in parallel with the African Climate Action Summit, also hosted by Kenya.

The three-day summit to be held on September 4–6 will bring together leaders and investors from Africa and beyond to share experiences and solutions for a sustainable, resilient Africa.

Financial Standard sat down with sustainable development advocate Isaac Kalua, who also chairs the Green Africa Foundation, on private sector involvement in combating climate change. Excerpts of the interview:

Developed nations have in the past pledged $100 billion (Sh14.3 trillion) in annual funding to help developing countries such as Kenya reduce emissions and manage the impacts of climate change. Is the goal being met?

There was $79.6 billion in climate finance in 2018, but the actual allocation to developing nations and its impact on the ground vary. It is essential to assess whether the committed funding is being effectively utilised and whether additional financial support is needed to meet the intended goals.

Let us remember that small island states and low-lying coastal areas are already losing land to rising seas. Conceivably, this may happen to Mombasa or Lamu. Flooding from extreme storms continues to wipe out people’s livelihoods in Africa and Asia.

Furthermore, heat waves are killing crops, affecting marine lives that our coastal communities rely on. According to the United Nations, the cost for low-income countries to adapt to these and other climate impacts far exceeds the promised $100 billion a year. This is why urgent action must be taken to meet and exceed the $100 billion target.

In July this year, we saw a landmark agreement mooted on the need to massively increase private sector finance to developing and middle-income countries to allow them to transition to clean energy. Has the private sector taken up this challenge?

Private sector involvement in financing the transition to clean energy in developing and middle-income countries has been growing, and there is increased recognition of the need for their engagement. However, the challenge lies in scaling up investment to the levels required to make a substantial impact.

While there has been progress in attracting private capital toward renewable energy projects, more efforts are needed to address barriers such as perceived risks and limited access to financing. Close collaboration between governments, international financial institutions, and the private sector is crucial to mobilise the required resources.

In order to secure private sector financing, there is need of de-risking of investments in countries with lower financial ratings. That is easier said than done. So it falls on African governments to create a conducive governance environment for such de-risking.

The government has said it plans to plant 15 billion trees by 2032, stop and reverse deforestation, and restore 5.1 million hectares of deforested and degraded landscapes as part of efforts to fight climate change. What do you make of the implementation plan?

The government’s plan demonstrates a comprehensive approach to combating climate change. However, the implementation of such an ambitious plan requires detailed strategies, sufficient resources, and effective monitoring mechanisms. It is vital to ensure that the plan accounts for community involvement, sustainable land management practices, and considerations for biodiversity preservation. Regular evaluation and adaptive management will be essential to make the implementation plan successful.

In addition, we can only meet this target if we plant four million trees every single day.

Electric vehicles (EVs) have been billed as a powerful weapon in the world’s battle to beat global warming. What interventions are necessary to help Kenya promote their use?

To promote the adoption of EVs, addressing key bottlenecks such as charging infrastructure and high costs is imperative. The government can consider implementing incentives such as tax credits, subsidies, and reduced import tariffs for EV-related technologies.

Public-private partnerships can be established to develop a robust charging infrastructure network, particularly in urban areas and major highways.

Promoting local manufacturing of EV components and batteries can help lower costs over time. Additionally, awareness campaigns and education on the benefits of EVs can encourage their adoption among consumers and businesses.

Banks and other financial institutions particularly have a key role in funding projects which support transition to a low-carbon economy. Do you feel they are taking practical steps in facilitating this and what more can they do?

Many banks have started integrating environmental and social risk criteria into their lending decisions, and some have committed to align their portfolios with climate goals. However, more can be done.

Banks can enhance their green financing offerings, provide customised financial products for sustainable projects, and collaborate with industry stakeholders to develop innovative financing models. They should also increase transparency in reporting their climate-related exposures and investments to facilitate informed decision-making.

The Central Bank of Kenya review recently revealed that the lowest loan rate was at nine per cent and the highest at 17.6 per cent. Cheaper loans for green investments are critical to spur growth in this sector.

William Ruto has been questioned on his commitment to mitigating climate change risks after he lifted a ban on logging as well as softening on shamba system. What do you think of these policies?

The policy decisions could indeed raise concerns about Kenya’s commitment to climate change mitigation efforts. They have the potential to contribute to deforestation and increased greenhouse gas emissions.

It is important for the government to consider the long-term environmental impacts of such policy changes and ensure they are balanced with comprehensive measures to preserve ecosystems, promote sustainable land management, and engage local communities in conservation efforts.

 

Last week, there were two major occurrences that will impact Kenya’s food security. The second one took place on Thursday when President William Ruto launched the 2022 Short Rains (October to December) assessment report at State House Nairobi.

The report revealed that Kenya has experienced a fifth consecutive poor rainfall season. This has adversely affected an estimated six million people in 32 counties. Among those affected are over 970,000 children aged between six to nine months and 142,000 pregnant women. These vulnerable members of our society are currently malnourished and in need of urgent help.

What this report doesn’t reveal just because it is beyond its scope is that all 50 million Kenyans are indirectly affected by the five consecutive poor rainfall seasons. We are all interdependent. If those who work for you are eating less or skipping meals, their productivity will be affected, which will directly impact you. That’s why we must rise together from this food insecurity or sink together.

I am confident that we, as a nation are taking steps that will improve our climate resilience and the food security that relies on it. Climate resilience refers to our ability to prepare for, recover from, and adapt to the impacts of climate change, which include poor rainfall seasons like the ones we have been experiencing.

Last week on Monday, the first major occurrence related to our food security passed almost unnoticed by the public. On that day, the President nominated four distinguished Kenyans to the Climate Change Council. They are Emily Mwende, John Kioli, Umar Omar and George Odera. Although Kenya’s historic Climate Change Act was enacted into law in 2016, it has taken seven years for its operationalisation to commence through nomination of these four council members. Parliament will now subject them to scrutiny.

This council will be chaired by the President himself and will among other things, ensure mainstreaming of the climate change function by the national and county governments. As such, the council will then ensure that God forbid, if there will be a sixth consecutive poor rainfall season next year, the national and county governments will not be caught napping. That’s why the council’s full operationalisation is critical.

Once approved, the Climate Change Council must immediately swing into action because of these three reasons:

Firstly, another failed rainfall season would plunge millions more Kenyans into chronic hunger. We must therefore implement climate resilience interventions immediately. According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, climate resilience includes interventions like switching to drought-resistant crops and reducing dependence on rain-fed agriculture. Let’s simplify this language for Kenyans to execute.

Secondly, we must ensure all nature-based economic activities are not undermined by a changing climate. Research by Germany’s University of Hohenheim reveals that climate change has severely impacted the Serengeti-Mara migration that draws thousands of tourists to Kenya annually. The wildebeest have declined by 60 per cent since 1977. If this trend continues, one of Kenya’s major tourist attractions and tourism at large will be dealt a fatal blow, which will directly affect the livelihoods of millions of households.

Thirdly, as Kenyans grapple with high cost of living, there is need to develop a more climate resilient economy. The Kenya Climate Change Act states that, ‘the National Climate Change Action Plan shall address all sectors of the economy.’ This is a monumental task that should now be handled through the coordination and stewardship of the National Climate Change Council.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa has revealed that climate change impacts are already costing Africa 5 per cent of its GDP every year. A fully operational Climate Change Council will help Kenya stem this loss and attract increased climate resilient investments. Think green, act green!

Author: Isaac Kalua Green

Source: Standard Media Group

Last Thursday, I attended the burial of Dr Gershon Mwiti, an exceptional leader and a prominent member of the Methodist Church. He had known me since my childhood and always had powerful advice for me.

He often told me in no uncertain terms that, ‘you can only slay the dragon of corruption through the sword of courage.’ In a recent interview, Dr Mwiti proclaimed words that should resonate with every Kenyan of goodwill, “we must hate all that is evil, corrupt and damaging.”

Incidentally, during his burial there were damaging public remarks concerning ongoing wrangles in the Methodist Church. While it’s easy for other non-Methodist Christians to regard these public rows in the Methodist Church with indifference, the truth is that several other mainstream denominations are also undergoing divisive strife.

Last year, during the Anglican Church’s Lambeth Conference, there were glaring differences occasioned by matters of sexuality. So glaring were these differences that Anglican leaders from Nigeria, Rwanda and Uganda boycotted the conference.

Evidently, there are severe doctrinal and leadership differences within Christian denominations and between them. These differences are playing out in the public, further dividing congregants.

When the Church is preoccupied with putting out internal fires, they lose sight of societal furnaces that need to be extinguished. For instance, our nation is going through a silent epidemic of mental illness, a situation mirrored across the world. According to the World Health Organisation, one in every eight people in the world live with a mental disorder.

Such disorders are characterised by conditions like depression and extreme anxiety. Just last Wednesday, I attended the burial of a close friend who committed suicide. Thankfully, his family honoured his legacy, which includes his struggles, by openly addressing the cause of his death. Indeed, we should stop shaming victims of depression and other forms of mental illness. Men are more prone to commit suicide than women. A WHO report revealed that in 2017, 421 Kenyans committed suicide. Of these, 330 were men.

This trend remains the same six years later as men continue to take their lives more than women. Last week, there were three suicides and a murder in a Kiambu village in one night. It is no wonder that WHO states that 730,000 people commit suicide annually.

The church and other faith institutions must be on the forefront of putting out this fire of depression before it burns down more lives. Faith leaders are spiritual guardians charged with the responsibility of ensuring the spiritual wellbeing of their congregants. Such spiritual wellbeing is a strong antidote against depression and anxiety.

The church cannot undertake this critical responsibility if it is undergoing perennial infighting. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul admonishes them to cease dividing themselves into cliques that purport to follow either him or Apollos. He reminds them in the sixth verse that, ‘I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.’

The predominant focus of faith institutions should therefore be God not leader X or Y. Even legitimate leadership wrangles should be resolved in a way that doesn’t pressurise the faithful to take sides between the said leaders, X or Y.

Given the enormity of the mental health challenges that we are facing, faith institutions should in fact be unifying their efforts to combat mental disorders. We cannot afford to lose more lives because of mental illness. Faith leaders and adherents must join hands to promote the mental health because that is at the heart of spiritual wellbeing.

Even as we do so through different doctrinal and religious pathways, we should not lose sight of the fact that God waters our spirits and shields us from the kind of depression and anxiety that is snuffing out lives. Think green, act green!

Most hospitals in rural Kenya are in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). This reality hit home last week when my wife Susan and I drove my mother to the amenity facility of Kitui County Referral Hospital for urgent attention.

To our shock, the doctor gave us a tiny, reused piece of paper with four handwritten words “3 Copies lab request”. In short, the hospital was directing us to a nearby bureau to purchase treatment application forms before they could attend to us.

They explained rather dismissively that they had run out of the forms. Unfortunately, the bureau was closed since it was a weekend. Inevitably, we sought a private hospital in the area as I deeply thought about the patients we had left at the county hospital, who sadly did not seem to have any alternative. A while ago, Dorothy Lokomututo the mother of a dear friend Moses Banda had sought treatment at the same hospital after experiencing some pain in her chest. The hospital couldn’t attend to her because their diagnostic equipment had broken down. Instead, they referred her to Machakos where she was ‘diagnosed’ with cancer.

Later, several X-rays in Nairobi revealed that she had no trace of cancer in her body and was successfully treated. Can you imagine the trauma this family went through?

Dreadfully, these two honourable mothers’ experiences are not isolated. In 2020, the Kenya National Union of Medical Laboratory Officers (KNUMLO) revealed that three out of every 10 patients in Kenya, received the wrong diagnosis or treatment. Consequently, the health of millions of Kenyans has been severely compromised and many have prematurely lost their lives.

According to the recently released 2022 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey, 75 per cent of Kenyans don’t have any form of health insurance. When they fall sick, they have to dig deep into their own pockets and seek treatment from private hospitals owing to the dysfunction in public hospitals. According to the survey, 80 per cent of Kenyans in rural areas don’t have health insurance, compared to 60 per cent in urban areas. In addition, 25 per cent of pregnant women in rural areas give birth on their own, in the absence of a midwife or skilled health practitioner.

The number is lower in urban areas at 3 per cent. This bleak scenario continues after babies are born. In rural areas, one in five children suffers stunted growth, double the number in urban areas. According to the World Health Organisation, stunted children fall sick more often and are more likely to suffer from chronic diseases.

There is therefore an urgent need for decisive action to boost rural healthcare. Of course, the shortage in public hospitals must be addressed, but we must focus on the softer issues too. Firstly, our health practitioners need to own the problem and be empathetic to the institution and those they serve. Currently, most of our practitioners are detached from their institutions and therefore treat patients as irritants.

As such, we should consider nationwide campaign and refresher courses to steer health workers back to their professional calling. That alone will change public perception of public hospitals. Secondly, just like schools, there should be a clear boundary between public and private hospitals in the engagement of health practitioners.

If a public doctor can concurrently operate a private clinic what would prevent a nurse from starting a side ‘hustle’ of a photocopy bureau next to a public hospital? Isn’t this a reason why our institutions are largely dysfunctional despite the resources at their disposal?

Isn’t this the beginning of the very corruption we must uproot? Isn’t this the reason why local communities have been excluded from the governance of health facilities which is against the Health Act of 2017?

Isn’t this one of the reasons why Kitui County with its 340 health facilities, for instance, has delayed implementation of a vibrant Health Bill? The future of public health is in our own hands! Think act green!

In Summary
  • He made the pledge following the poor performance by athletes from Kitui during an inter county cross country competition at Kitui High School on Saturday
  • The Saturday event was hosted by the Athletic Kenya Kitui county branch under the chairmanship of Philip Ngovi

Renowned environmentalist, Dr. Isaac Kalua, has expressed concern over the lack of proper grooming of talented athletes from Kitui and offered to sponsor an annual Green Cross-country race.

Kalua was jolted by the poor showing by the team from Kitui during a cross-country competition at Kitui High School against their compatriots from Makueni and Machakos on Saturday.

Kalua lamented that although Kitui was well endowed with talented youth not only in sports but also in art, they never got the opportunity to exploit their acumen for lack of training.

He consequently announced that his own environmental outfit, Green Africa Group, would next year sponsor the Green Cross Country to the tune of Sh300,000 to identify talented athletes in Kitui for grooming.

“In my individual capacity and the green Africa Group, we will launch the Green Cross Country. I have been informed that for the event to successfully take place it requires a budget of Sh300, 000. I will put the money into the kitty,” said Kalua.

Kalua who is the CEO and founder of Green Africa Group said he would make the sponsorship of the Green cross-country an annual ritual to ensure that no talented sportsman was left behind.

He spoke at the Kitui High School grounds where he was the guest of honor during the Ukambani Inter-County Cross-Country competition that was attended by the AK Southern branch chairman, Paul Mutwii.

The competitions were organized and hosted by the Athletic Kenya Kitui county branch under the chairmanship of Philip Ngovi.

The event was used to pick sportsmen who will represent the region during the national cross-country championship at Ruiru on January 21 in Kiambu County.

Kalua lamented that no single athlete from Kitui qualified to be part of the team that will represent the region at the Ruiru national competition.

He noted that participants from Kitui County were obviously ill-prepared as they had not been exposed to any preparatory training. He said those from Makueni and Machakos counties appeared more groomed.

The conservationist said Kitui leaders should have hitherto exposed the athletes to training and in-house competitions for them to perfectly compete with those from Makueni and Machakos at the Saturday cross-country.


Credits: The Star Newspaper