Locusts and Pandemics

The East African region has been slammed in the past year by seemingly Straight-Out-Of-The-Bible plagues of locusts, floods, and now, the Global Covid19 Pandemic. It’s also been a tough year for civil society that for years, has suffered from both chronic and inappropriate funding. The sector suffers from the prioritization of project based financing over core support, the latter being the lifeblood of civil society. Funding also tends to be truncated and with fixed short term project cycles that don’t lend themselves to effective social change, or movement building which requires longer and more flexible time frames.

And while almost all NGOs are struggling to survive in a time of shrinking funding because of Covid19, local NGOs have been the clear losers in the funding for Covid response. A startling statistic from the Center for Global Development showed that only 0.07% of the US$2.5 billion allocated for Covid19 response has ended up in the hands of local non-governmental organizations.

The Covid pandemic has reinforced the need for the philanthropy sector to go back to basics. Some key concepts gaining prominence in this time include trust based grantmaking; the call to support civil society and other associational life in the form they see best; a shift from project based to core and operational support; adopting of nimble and responsive support that allows for adjustments in the external context. It has indeed been sobering for the sector to realize that for some, even a pandemic was insufficient to shift pre-agreed on log frames, and theories of change!  Other promising trends include a move to longer and collaborative partnerships as opposed to the more contractual project based financing.

Deficits:

In addition to Covid19, the Black Lives Matter Movement has caused a seismic shift in many sectors. The East African philanthropy sector is not exempt.  If we pan out, and look at the entire so-called “Development Sector”, some of the criticisms levelled against the sector are that the sector can be guilty of perpetuating post-colonial practices, or as Firoze Manji says of continuing the “Missionary position”.  This critique, mainly levelled against Western, or Western facing INGOs, is that through their work, they center (mainly) Western societies as the ideal that African societies should “develop into”. As a consequence, the work and efforts of the sector end up being an effort at panel beating African NGOs and societies from what  “isn’t” (in Africa) to what “is” (in Western Societies).  Equally sobering is the critique that INGOs also operate and reinforce specific power structures through their work, where on one side, you’ll typically have Western (or Western facing) donors/ INGOs with all the knowledge. And on the other side, you’ll have local NGOs (“grantees”) often positioned as supplicants waiting to be capacity built, funded and generally whipped into shape.  It’s this centering of development on the “white gaze”, a phrase coined by the late Toni Morrison (may she rest in perfect power), and also echoed by others like Dr Robtel Naijali, and Dr Mordecai Ogada, that we are called upon to change, if the sector is to serve the communities it was ostensibly created to serve.

Some of the work that we are urgently called upon to do includes de-racialising development, and this moment presents us an opportune time to examine our practices. The sector needs to urgently reform its practices including a shift in power, attitudes and grant making practices.

In Parting: The Parable of the Sower

Growing up, I remember my incredulity when I was told that growing crops in straight lines was something that was “brought by the white man”.  When rather skeptically I asked what we were doing before, I was told “we were planting haphazardly”.  Many years later, I came across the work of Howard Jones who had studied African polyculture, and the ‘discovery’ was that far from being haphazard, this was actually well thought out agronomy practice. And this served as a lesson, as growing up, the visually pleasing straight lines were examples of aspirational farming, and with the more complicated polyculture being something that we needed to develop from. How much soil health, and agricultural productivity have we lost as ‘modern agriculture’ tried to ‘modernize’ African agricultural practices I wonder?

And that’s a good way to end this #ShortTake.  How much are we losing as a sector as we try and ‘develop’ society on our terms, and not communities? How much NGO vibrancy is lost when we try and mold NGOs into a certain image? We truly need to find out what our True North should be, else no amount of recalibration of compasses will fix what ails the sector.

Formerly known as Enkare Nairobi

Despite being the birth place of Wangari Maathai, of being the current host of the UNEP, we treat our natural resources in the country the way public officials treat our hard earned money. With contempt, and as a never ending ATM. Despite being perennially squeezed for water as a water scarce country, we still mismanage the fragile ecosystems and water bodies we currently have with politicians engaging in an infantile populist chicken/ egg argument over whether forests bring rain, or rain brings forests (correct answer: forests bring rain).

The notion that we are but custodians of this land- and that we hold it in trust for future generations is a central tenet of what we say we stand for as a country. It’s enshrined in the Constitution, and with responsible planetary stewardship a corner stone of most religious belief systems.  Unfortunately, this principle didn’t survive first contact with the venal kleptocracy that is Kenya. Our rivers, rhinos, forests, elephants, beaches, sand, coral ecosystems are all under siege.

We have a penchant for constraining things that were always meant to be free. But nature has a habit of cracking down on those who thwart her. She’s resilient- “able to absorb and accommodate future events in whatever unexpected form they may take." But she’s not infinitely forgiving. She scoffs at tenderpreneur’s elastic compromises, and in the past, we’ve seen her fight back at the people who deigned to constrain her.  In a sense, nature has been fighting back as NEMA and the rest twiddled their thumbs. The current clearing of riparian land is a belated move to rectify sins of omission and commission that have been piling up over the years. While NEMA is late to the show, nature has been working on clearing this up herself and on reclaiming what was never ours to build on. We watched as developers erected buildings and homes on riparian land and in typical “shauri yako” fashion, built culverts designed to shepherding the river into other peoples’ property! Pity. 

Beyond the multiple damming and diversion of the river that’s been happening and causing flooding, the encroachment of riparian reserve has been disastrous to the urban ecology of Nairobi. The riparian reserve is more than an aesthetic requirement. Riparian zones carry out soil nitrification amongst other things,  and off balance leads to eutrophication and deoxygenation of the riverine system.  A whiff of the Kirichwa River provides ample proof that all’s not right in the Nairobi river system. Our rivers are full of trash and debris and some- like the Ngong River are nothing more than open sewers. It’s not entirely surprising because where a government connects less than half the resident households with sewer systems, waste has to go somewhere with the resultant rivers being nothing more than fetid and murky cesspools brimming with plastic bags even months after the plastic ban.

The Caveat Emptorness of it all:

Living in Kenya sometimes feels like being in the Thunderdome in Mad Max.  The utter lack of safeguards for citizens shows us that in almost all interactions, the citizen is on her own. While I applaud the demolition of property that was wilfully and deliberately built on riparain land by those who knew it was public land and perverted the system to do so, it's utterly deplorable that *some* innocent Kenyans who bought land in good faith have now been left holding the bag.  The news clip of homeowners in Green Park in Athi River whose houses were being demolished was gut wrenching. They’ve been left holding mortgages that they still need to pay for over land that was never theirs to own and my heart goes out to them. Meanwhile- the developers who bribed and built their way into this mess are still laughing all the way to the bank. It’s a situation that needs urgent rectification- the demolition of houses should be accompanied by an EACC investigation of how those multiple permits came to be issued. It also behoves NEMA to publicly publish a list of what is public land (which all riparian land is), and to show what actions have been taken against employees who participated in the creation of this unholy mess.  

This information asymmetry in a perennially corrupt environment lends itself to a situation where the innocent are hoodwinked, and the corrupt find safe harbour for their pillage and robbery of public land. It’s an untenable state of affairs. Ultimately, for longer lasting and more just solutions, we need more safeguards and constancy from the Government.

#SwitchOffKLPC Hashtags and social movements

KOT is characterised by many things. It’s rambunctious, boisterous and decidedly disorderly. It’s sometimes funny and whimsical.  It’s also on occasion misogynistic and homophobic. And every so often, we have woke KOT.  And while “twitter activism” has been dismissed in many places (think Peter Kenneth’s presidential  “twitter votes”), its mobilising and rallying power has definitely changed how online Kenyans think and interact with the state and authority. Twitter’s ability to democratise information has forged commonalities in Kenyans where through the hyper-connectedness of Twitter, common outrage against inflated power bills has led to Kenyans mobilising around the #SwitchOffKPLC hashtag.

Hashtag  activism isn’t new in Kenya. There have been some successful hashtags e.g. the #MyDressMyChoice which was able to halt the noxious trend by  PSV operators of assaulting women for “dressing indecently” and also translated to offline prosecutions and convictions. Some of these hashtags were short lived and ephemeral e.g.  #SomeoneTellCNN, the #UhuruChallenge or even the #DeportKoffiOlomide that faded off KOT radar after objectives were met (and perhaps also due to an admittedly short KOT attention span!). Some e.g. #WhatIsARoad #OverlapKE have morphed into longer lasting hashtags that are still being used to call attention to two of the biggest aggravations facing Kenyan commuters- the deplorable state of our roads, and overlapping menaces who make commuting a daily nightmare.

Kenya Power and power

By all accounts, KPLC is the piggy-bank of choice for government regimes, officials and connected Kenyans. It’s a feeding trough that is fed by hard earned Kenyan cash- much of this non disposable income for Kenyans that are barely making it.

The #SwitchOffKPLC campaign has also given Kenyans a small peek behind the curtains at the corruption machine that runs and controls most of industry and politics in Kenya. “KOT police” have been instrumental in providing information that answer Eric Wainaina’s question of who is to blame for the rot in our country. What’s clearly obvious through some of the information that is coming through is that this corruption machine neither sleeps nor slumbers. Like a perverse virtue, this looting machine is patient, and unkind. It always protects the benefactors, and unless something changes, will probably always persevere. It’s also proven to be very innovative - see e.g. the third party token vendors who saw an opportunity to make money through alternative paybills and were able to capture 35% of the token market.

What we should however never lose sight of is that these staggering fortunes made through bribery of KPLC officials, creation of fake fuel shortages, and  siphoning of money are crimes that have very real victims behind them. If you trawl the lead campaigners/ founders of the movement @apollomboya  @jerotichSeei and supporters’ twitter timelines, tweets tell stories of predation by an uncaring, indifferent corporation that has used its position as a monopoly to brutalise and bilk Kenyans of their hard earned and scarce coins regardless of the human cost. They have shown zero compunction in over billing widows and grannies, and businesses on the edge. 

Social Movements & Social Media

For Kenyan civil society- especially those working in transparency/ accountability and energy sector, the campaign offers an opportunity to make change in the notoriously corrupt energy sector. And while I don’t think that online campaigning will (or even should) replace traditional civil society, supporting the #SwitchOffKPLC campaign would bolster the efforts of the movement and their own work in energy justice. There are perhaps lessons to be learned from how the #BLM movement has been able to grow from a twitter hashtag to one that has galvanised (and some say rescued) the civil rights movement in the US. From all accounts, it was able to morph into a social movement because of its ability to tap into grassroots organisations, NGOs and other associational life to leverage its online popularity into offline work in the judiciary, churches, schools etc. Mr Mboya’s public interest litigation, online research and activism by Ms Seii   and others has translated to offline gains where consumers have earned a reprieve from inflated bills through the court system.  For civil society activists, the campaign could serve to connect energy justice, anti corruption and transparency and accountability work. 

It’s proving that it can help counter sponsored disinformation and provide alternative narratives that amplify universally recognisable truths- that the kleptocracy that rules Kenya is literally and metaphorically killing us. It also offers an already beleaguered civil society a chance to re-moblise its base, and work to chip away at the age old corruption looting machine we’ve been fighting for a long time. 

xxx

Wakanda movements?

Erik Killmonger in Black Panther is arguably *the* most nuanced, incandescent antagonist/ super villain in the comic world– perhaps only rivalled by Heath Ledger’s Joker. To a child of a (former) colonial state, I identified and understood his struggle. I got Erik. I was rooting for him! But in the end, I was totally disappointed by just how badly women fared at his hands.

If we use Black Panther as an allegory of women’s role in Kenyan social justice movements, the disposability of women in Erik’s quest (death of his female partner, the choking of the heart shaped herb guardian), are disappointingly familiar.  Contrast this with T'Challa's Wakanda where women are integral and vital. It was so refreshing to see women taking crucial and non-supporting roles. In Wakanda- women were core to the struggle. Generals, tech geniuses, spies, rulers. They served and they saved. 

And looking inwards at our non-fictional nation of Kenya, it should serve as a cautionary tale to all the social justice movements that purport to be working for the greater good of society. Where are the women in your ranks? How are they being treated? Are we sanctioning- and casting out misogynists? Are we actively working to counter anti-female rhetoric and misogyny in the rank and file of the organisation?

If not, the movement is at its heart an unjust movement. And unjust movements bring forth unjust outcomes where they simply populate the same unjust structures with new faces.