from Judy Miriga
Folks,
Take note and compare African history 50 years, and get busy to engage with progressives to provide solution for Way Forward to a cooperative Agricultural development sustainability and this will be our success story in the Millennium Development Agenda……..
It is because, African Union leadership Agenda has failed….It has been fully compromised by the special Interest of the corrupted……..It was Gadaffi’s, Osama bin Laden, with the Internantional Corporate Business Special Interest Agenda for THIEVERY of African Resource and Economic Potentials “Intellectual Property Thieving” ………It is the reason there is too much pain and suffering in Africa………It is the reason of extermination of Africans through dubious Health Program Agenda initiated by International Corporate Special Interest Lobbyist and Foundations………..It is the reason for excessive Poverty, gangry, drug and human trafficking exploding in Africa, it is the reason why Somali has been turned into a HUBFACILITY for Somali Pirate, Al-Qaeda and Ashabaab Market resource in Africa………
…..it is for this reason Kibaki and Raila provided material support, the reason they both stand accused ……..It is an Agenda to impoverish and starve poor Africans to remain beggers, an easy catch for slaugher…..It is the reason the Blood of Africa is Crying…..a source of WEALTH for the Special Interest ……it is the reason Raila the Wheeler Dealer lobbyied for Luo Nyanza “Top Skin” for Chinese Mission Agenda and Dominion Farm in Luo Nyanza……..I just wonder what delicacy the Chinese have for the “Top Skin” Harvest of Human body…Specifically The South of Human Industrial Area……could it be for making sousages supply or is it for adding nutrients for Chinese Herbal Medicinal value…….???………Very sad indeed when owners (Human Beings) and Africa’s Natural wealth are turned to a HUB for Special Interest Wealth in the Emerging Markets for unscrupulous International Corporate Business Community……..When will this stop so to engage fairly on Mutual Partnership business relationship of “Give and Take” …….. Trading according to value…….Who should we go to ask….???
The relationship interest between Zenawi Ethiopian President with Kibaki are not for good intentions of the interests of Kenyans, Ugandans, Somali Citizens, Congolese, Tanzanians nor are they for progress of Africa’s Development Agenda or Economic stability………..We must legally stand against such corrupt deals that are systematically destroying lives to benefit and build wealth to a few. It is not right and is an act of violation and crime against humanity……..the reason for excessive poverty, pain and unending sufferings……..
President Obama’s Foreign Policy for Africa is the best I can assure you……..Get organized ready to engage Partnership for Mutual Millennium Development Agenda…….It is a program which is based on Job and Wealth creation to all in a shared fair play to include the middle class and the poor alike……….It is a win win strategy for all, the best for National economic development, where the world will enjoy Peace, Love and Unity of purpose for common good of all……..
This is reason why, ICC Hague with Ocampo has a sure case with Kibaki and Raila, and also, that Kenya should have a breather to engage in Fresh Start……..Charting Way Forward for the Devolution County Implementation of the New Constitution……..without involving Kibaki or Raila………Both of them, their place is in the ICC Hague……..They should dissolve the Coalition Government NOW as they are delaying Kenyans from taking serious steps to organize 2012 election and formalize a Fresh Start New Government…….Yes, we have a solution and we can fix this man-made problem and preserve lives of poor Africans……
Thank you all,
Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com
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NSE unveils measures to attract foreign capital inflows
By James Anyanzwa
Nairobi Stock Exchange has announced new measures to attract foreign capital to boost liquidity.
The new measures include introduction of branded equity and Treasury bond indices, and re-classification of the business segments for listed companies.
The bourse’s Chairman, Eddy Njoroge, said the proposed indices would run concurrently with the NSE 20-Share and NSE All Share indices. Njoroge pointed out that the branded indices would give NSE the opportunity to use global index provider’s expertise to design, manage and distribute branded indices and index related products. He added that the Treasury Bond index would enable investors gauge the performance of their bond portfolios.
“Overall, the indices should improve capital flows into the domestic market and enhance liquidity and market capitalisation,” said Njoroge.
Bell ringing
Njoroge pointed out that the NSE was working in collaboration with a global index provider to implement the project. He was speaking during a bell ringing ceremony to mark the commencement of trading of the British American Investment Company Ltd shares on the NSE on Thursday.
Njoroge said the new method of classifying business segments of listed companies places equities under 10 industry sectors, while debt securities – including preference shares – are under three categories. “We are convinced that the reclassification will provide a more accurate reflection of the diversity of the companies listed at the NSE, and by extension, reflect the increasing diversification of our economy,” said Njoroge.
His remarks comes after the NSE’s persistent bear run, occasioned primarily by draught, rising inflation, volatility of the local currency, weaker growth projections and the institutional investors concern over excessively indebted European economies, and the unstable American economy.
This has seen the NSE 20-Share index drop below the 4,000 mark for the first time since April. On Wednesday, Market turnover declined 21 per cent as foreign investor participation dominated the bourse at 74 per cent. Overall, 20 counters notched higher while 14-posted declines.
“We, however, remain bullish, and are confident that this trend will reverse in the not too distant future,” said Njoroge.
He said the NSE would continue to innovate and enhance its capacity to serve investors better.
He also pointed out that the proposed demutualisation of the exchange could be effected by September 30, after gazettement of the Capital Markets (Demutualisation of the NSE regulations.
Once done, the NSE would be converted to the Nairobi Securities Exchange Ltd.
Pressure piles on Kibaki to let go Muthaura, Uhuru
By ISAAC ONGIRI
The second confirmation of charges hearings in The Hague featuring Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, Head of Public Service Francis Muthaura and Postmaster General Hussein Ali is generating a lot of heat within President Kibaki’s inner circle.
Signs of anticipated local and International pressure to force the two to resign from Government began to show two weeks ago when ICC Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo wrote another letter to the Government asking for the immediate resignation of both Muthaura and Uhuru from their influential Government positions.
Early this week, a Cabinet committee on the ICC, chaired by Internal Security Minister Prof George Saitoti, met and among other things reviewed the letter by Ocampo and differed on whether or not the two should quit upon the confirmation of their cases.
Legal Officer at the ICC Courts Mohamed El Zeidy (right), ICC Spokesperson Fadi El Abdallaah (centre) and Senior Legal Advisor Gilbert Bitti address the Press at the ICC Courts yesterday. [PICTURE: EVANS HABIL/STANDARD]
In an Interview with The Standard on Saturday, Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo warned that some of the arguments being advanced by individuals who want Uhuru and Muthaura to stay on have always led Kenya into trouble and put the country in perennial conflict-management mode.
And Mutula is candid in his argument: “Even before the new Constitution was adopted, we had the Public Officers Ethics Act, and we have seen people stepping aside on very petty cases compared to this one.
Look at the case of Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetangula, for example. Under the new Constitution, people should not advance such arguments. It is obvious that if the cases at the ICC are confirmed, then the Government cannot sustain the inclusion of two in Government”.
Citing article 75 of the Constitution, Mutula argued: “If you ask me, the cases at the ICC are over some of the worst crimes on earth, they are demeaning indeed and the law is obviously intolerant of public officers facing such cases,” said the minister.
The question bothering the President and his key lieutenants is what to do in the face of confirmation of the cases hearings facing Uhuru and Muthaura due on September 21.
Uhuru and Muthaura stand as the pillars of the Kibaki administration.
And the big issue posing the greatest dilemma to the President — who is in his last term of office — is whether to take courage and fire the two loyal supporters in order to be seen to comply in both the spirit and letter with a Constitution that holds key to his legacy. Further, it is believed that lingering in Kibaki’s mind is whether or not to remain defiant and keep Uhuru and Muthaura — whose inclusion in the career-threatening international crimes cases arose out of their defence of his presidency.
Previous responsibilities
Muthaura is in-charge of the Public Service, which includes the Police service. He has, however, stepped out of his previous responsibilities as chairman of the Cabinet Sub-Committee on National Security and Intelligence.
Uhuru is a top-level member of the grand coalition government and the finance docket he holds ranks him as one of the very influential ministers.
After having explored all the possibilities to either stop or delay the cases, President Kibaki and his men are said to be preparing for the worst, which is whether or not the cases will be confirmed.
“He has called for the opinion of the Attorney-General, his advisors on constitutional issues and other legal confidants in government on how to handle this hot matter,” said a senior Government insider.
The ruling on whether or not the first case will go to full trial is expected in 60 days, which is around December 24, and slightly thereafter for the second case.
The biggest headache in the minds of Kibaki advisers keen to ensure that Muthaura and Uhuru keep their jobs, it has been revealed, is how to explain to the public why under similar circumstances former Higher Education Minister William Ruto had to be suspended, why former Industrialisation Minister Henry Kosgey — who together with Ruto are also ICC suspects — had to resign and why former Roads Assistant minister Dr Wilfred Machage had to be suspended over hate speech claims.
Ruto was suspended by President Kibaki after a Nairobi court ruled that he had a case to answer over an alleged Sh272 million fraud case, but has since been acquitted while Kosgey resigned under pressure after a court ruled that he had a case to answer over a corruption case involving the importation of aged motor vehicles.
Assistant Minister Lee Kinyanjui said though the Uhuru and Muthaura were innocent until proved guilty, it was a different issue altogether if the cases were confirmed. The Nakuru town MP is conscious of Chapter Six of the Constitution, which he says may halt the continuous stay of the two in Government.
“To be honest, I think it will be obvious that the two can’t stay in their positions in the unlikely event that their cases are confirmed, it is not possible,” Kinyanjui told The Standard on Saturday.
Ordinary public officers
Nairobi lawyer Ojwang’ Agina warned that it would be a breach of the law to allow individuals who have cases to answer to stay in Government. “Even today, ordinary public officers with criminal cases are immediately interdicted. It will be odd for Kibaki to think he can keep the two in public office if their cases are confirmed,” said the lawyer.
However, Cabinet minister Njeru Githae sees things differently. He cites the Rome Statute that he claims protects suspects from being condemned or being forced to suffer unnecessary losses or disadvantages until their cases are proved beyond reasonable doubt.
“There is a very huge difference between the international cases the two are facing in The Hague and any local cases. Here, we must stick to international laws,” said Githae.
The minister said there was no requirement in law that based on the ICC cases, Uhuru, Muthaura and Ali should be discharged from their Government positions.
His Trade counterpart, Chirau Ali Mwakwere, maintained that there was no cause for alarm as the Kenyan Constitution provided that anyone was innocent until the day the court would prove quilt.
“Who will want to draw the blood of an innocent man… who will want to have innocent people fired from Government? Not until Moreno-Ocampo prove they are guilty,” said Mwakwere.
This school of thought is further cemented by the reasoning of city lawyer Kibe Mungai, who argues that nothing in law compels the President to fire the two on the basis of confirmation hearings.
“The cases faced by Ruto and Kosgey were anti-corruption cases and therefore fell within the provisions of the Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Act, a scenario very different from the ICC cases. In fact, the law is clear that the two may only lose their positions upon conviction beyond six months,” Mungai argues.
Ndaragua MP Jeremiah Kioni reasons that it is an abomination to even start thinking that Uhuru’s case will be confirmed.
Horn of Africa Leaders Meet in Kenya to Discuss Strategies to Beat Famine
By Sarah McGregor – Sep 9, 2011 10:06 AM CT
Heads of state from Horn of Africa nations met in Nairobi to discuss ways of ending a drought in the region that the United Nations says is killing hundreds of people every day.
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, his Somali counterpart, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, are among five government leaders from the most affected nations who attended the talks today.
A draft summit declaration urges donors to boost technical and financial support for Somalia’s transitional federal government and calls for the creation of a “multi-donor” trust fund for regional disasters. It also requires governments to increase land under irrigation, boost forest cover and improve the livelihoods of farmers and pastoralists.
Following two unseasonably dry rainy seasons, about 13.3 million people are in need of assistance, up from a previous estimate of 12.4 million, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in an e-mailed statement today.
The most severely affected country is Somalia, where six areas in the south are experiencing a famine that has put 750,000 people at risk of starvation, Mark Bowden, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, said on Sept. 5. Tens of thousands of people have died from the crisis, Bowden said.
Aid agencies are mostly barred from operating in areas in Somalia held by al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda-affiliated rebel group that has been fighting the Western-backed government since 2007.
Somali Exodus
The situation has prompted more than 250,000 Somalis to flee the country since the start of the year, with the lion’s share going to neighboring Kenya as well as Ethiopia, Yemen and Djibouti, according to OCHA, as the UN agency is known.
Dadaab in northern Kenya, the world’s largest refugee complex, now hosts more than 500,000 people, Kibaki told the conference today. It was designed to house 90,000 people when it opened in 1991.
“The continuous flow of refugees undermines national and regional security arrangements,” Kibaki said. “It has become more difficult to control the smuggling of small arms and light weapons into neighboring countries.”
The drought is a demonstration of climate change linked to man-made greenhouse-gas emissions, which rich countries are responsible for, leaving Africa with no choice but to “mitigate and adapt,” said Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete.
Aid Pledges
Africa contributes less than 3.5 percent of global carbon emissions, according to the UN’s Environment Program.
African nations promised $351.7 million in cash and $28 million in other forms of aid at a conference in Ethiopia last month. The crisis will persist until at least the end of the year, because even if expected rains come in October it will take time to cultivate crops, Bowden said.
About 62 percent of the $2.4 billion required to address the crisis has been raised, according to the UN humanitarian aid office.
“Often to get food aid is 10 times more in cost than actually to have sustained production on the ground,” Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia University economist, told reporters today in Nairobi. “If we look at the longer term, the idea of simply going from crisis to crisis, from devastation to devastation, is the most costly approach of all.”
Kenya: Network to Increase Credit to Agriculture
Mwaniki Wahome
7 September 2011
Agriculture is set for increased funding, following the establishment of a network by the East African Community.
The East Africa Agriculture Finance Network will constitute banks, insurance firms, co-operatives, venture capitalists, private equity funds and investors, government representatives and regulators, regional economic communities and small-and-medium enterprises. The network is sponsored by Usaid.
Speaking during its launch at the Kenya School of Monetary Studies in Nairobi, Agriculture minister Sally Kosgei, said farmers face bureaucratic hurdles when seeking credit.
“The low lending to farmers shows either that banks do not understand farming or fail to appreciate that agriculture can be a business,” she said.
Many bank officials had little knowledge on agriculture and could, therefore, not make decisions fast enough on funding projects, she said.
Agriculture only gets 30 per cent of its credit requirements — Sh40 billion against needs of Sh130 billion.
East Africa Community secretary-general Richard Sezibera, said member states were formulating laws in the common agriculture policy.
He said Kenya had 27 Bills awaiting enactment and that policy weaknesses in government and private sector had neglected agriculture.
He said non-tariff barriers continued to hurt trading between the states.
Mr Sezibera said fears that Kenya would dominate trade in the region were without foundation.
TradeInvest Africa (Cape Town)
Africa and the World Food Crisis: Time to Focus on Solutions
Dabney Tonelli
7 September 2011
In February 2011, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Food Price Index reached an all-time high, while in 2010 the number of hungry in the world exceeded one billion people.
Although it is no doubt vulnerable, Africa also has enormous potential to help solve this crisis. As Kofi Annan remarked in a speech to the FAO in June, “Cereal yields in Africa are less than a quarter of the global average – and have barely increased in 30 years …
But at the same time, Africa is the continent which has perhaps the greatest opportunities to help find solutions to global food insecurity. It is blessed with abundant land, containing some 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land. Even within existing cultivated land, a doubling of cereal yields would turn Africa into a major food surplus region
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There will be no single solution to this complex and growing problem. While alarm over controversial land acquisitions make headlines, informed debate on ways to address the food crisis garners less media attention. Genuine concerns have been raised about deals termed “land grabs”: moving indigenous people off customary lands, inappropriate (or lack of) compensation and unfair treatment of local populations.Clearly, where such reports are true, unethical behaviour should be censured, and there is no question that investment into Africa must be done responsibly.
At the same time, it would be a mistake to indiscriminately discourage private investment as that could have an equally negative impact on the rural poor in Africa. As Calestous Juma, a Harvard professor who directs the Agricultural Innovation in Africa Project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, put it recently, critics are “…wrong to demonise all the deals as ‘land grabs’ without offering better alternatives on how Africa can meet the needs of its growing population. To call for a blanket moratorium on investment is tantamount to asking Africa to commit economic suicide.
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Attracting foreign investors can facilitate growth of the agricultural sector through commercial expansion, increasing yields by implementing techniques like conservation tillage, crop rotation, doubling cropping and irrigation. Ultimately, such investment will produce more food for Africa, and has the potential to improve social conditions, provide access to education and training, and increase economic prospects in rural areas.
The recent growth of African economies has been impressive. According to the World Bank, sub-Saharan Africa, excluding South Africa, is one of the world’s fastest growing developing regions, supported by a growing middle-class with discretionary income to spend and rising business confidence.
However, the latest Africa Competitiveness Report highlights the importance of the private sector in sustaining this growth story, stating that “to grow further and be globally competitive, Africa needs to put in place the conditions for a vibrant private sector. The time is propitious to support reform and to help Africa improve its competitiveness and growth prospects.
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Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank Group, has repeatedly emphasised the critical role private equity has to play in emerging markets: “The combination of expertise and capital is the reason why private equity companies have a strong developmental impact. This combination accelerates both growth and efficiency. Companies backed by private equity are more inclined to make long-term investments; they pursue more economically important innovations and concentrate on the business application of core technologies. Private equity acts as a catalyst for creating jobs. It is part of a dynamic that improves governance, too.
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A constructive debate on this issue should take into account another point emphasised by Kofi Annan, which is the acknowledgement that subsistence farming alone will not solve the food crisis. Not only are Africa’s yields a fraction of the global average, investment today into African agriculture is relatively limited.
Annan highlights Zambia and Angola as two countries with significant potential: extensive fertile land available and, due to the climate, two crops a year can be harvested, which presents one way in which to dramatically enhance the continent’s low yields.
We see enormous opportunities as we look to develop agricultural businesses across the value chain in Zambia, where as much as 75% of small-scale farmers mono-crop, a practice that can lead to poor yields and limit farm development. Low cost techniques like conservation tillage and crop rotation can easily be introduced to local farmers by neighbouring large-scale commercial operators.
Conservation tillage leaves the soil undisturbed with a blanket of rich organic matter covering the soil. As seeds and other inputs are spread, the subsequent rotting of the top layer creates natural fertilising effects and protects against the erosion that would otherwise sweep away the most fertile part of the soil due to wind and rain. Soil degradation leads to lower productivity. Traditionally, as the quality of their soil depletes, mono-cropping farmers move to another patch of land, starting the cycle again.
Conservation tillage not only reduces soil erosion, it also preserves moisture, reduces farm labour requirements, expands the growing window between planting and harvest, and increases organic matter in the soil, boosting nutrients, improving soil structure and helping to sequester carbon, as carbon dioxide, in the soil.
Typically farmers in Zambia grow maize, sorghum, or cassava, with maize being the national food staple. We see an opportunity to introduce outgrower schemes in which we encourage neighbouring small-scale maize farmers to grow soya – a legume with a natural nitrogen fixing effect on the soil -as well. This requires no additional investment or special equipment, yet farmers have no apparent incentive as they have no need for soya and lack a market for it. Commercial farm operators can introduce routes to market for soya, enabling local farmers to increase their income while improving the quality of their soil.
Over time, the productivity of the maize/soya farmers will increase, which can in turn further increase their income as maize yields rise in response and surpluses can be sold.
According to the FAO, food loss that takes place post harvest and in marketing tends to be highest in countries most in need of food, where production is often not linked to marketing. Providing routes to market and access to infrastructure introduced by commercial farms, such as storage, milling, and transport, can have a dramatic effect: rather than selling at harvest time or losing their grain to decay, small-scale farmers may choose to wait to command a better price later in the season.
While conservation tillage and crop rotation have obvious benefits, they are not widely practiced in southern Africa. However, these techniques are commonly taught and implemented in western agricultural colleges, and we believe that through establishing outreach programmes and by forming relationships with agricultural colleges we can begin to assist in their introduction locally. This type of knowledge transfer can have a significant impact on sustainable agricultural development.
We invest in sustainable agricultural ventures in Africa. By acquiring existing brownfield farms in private transactions where leaseholds are purchased from individual owners, we enter into transparent commercial deals. In Zambia, leases are transferred through a process by which we obtain the state’s consent. A typical transaction comprises 2 000 to 5 000 hectares of land; we aim to establish three to five production hubs, each with approximately 10 000 hectares under irrigation.
A commitment to feed Africa is integral to our business model, which focuses on exporting food cross border within sub-Saharan Africa to meet the growing demand of a continent in which market inefficiencies and poor infrastructure have contributed to high food prices.
In conducting our business, we are committed to following the IFC Performance Standards, which relate to environmental and social practices, and we are poised to introduce local outgrower schemes as well as training and educational programmes, transferring skills and creating jobs.
We believe in the transformational power of introducing knowledge and financial capital as well as proven approaches that can pave the way to future prosperity for the people of Africa. While solutions to the world’s food crisis will be many and varied, it is our view that expansion of commercial farming in Africa must play a role and that foreign investment into Africa, when done in an ethical and responsible way, should be encouraged.
Kenya residents feel threatened by famine refugees
By MALKHADIR M. MUHUMED – Associated Press | AP – Sat, Sep 3, 2011
DADAAB, Kenya (AP) — As tens of thousands of refugees flee Somalia’s famine for Kenya’s arid east, residents say they are torn between welcoming their fellow ethnic Somalis — and feeling threatened as the new arrivals squeeze the area’s limited resources and compete for jobs.
Officials fear the new influx could force long-simmering tension in the region to boil over. Police say they have already seen locals clash with refugees who have recently crossed the nearby border. That has prompted police to ask for hundreds more officers.
In recent weeks, some 1,500 refugees have arrived each day at the overcrowded United Nations-run refugee camps in Kenya’s east.
The U.N. says more than 12 million people in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti need aid after a devastating drought swept across the region. Somalia has been hardest hit.
Northeastern Kenya has long been inhabited by ethnic Somalis, making it a destination for 400,000 Somali refugees who are now in the world’s largest refugee camps of Dadaab. The first influx started in 1991, when tens of thousands came as refugees after Mogadishu’s last central government collapsed.
Osman Bathe, a resident who has been elected to local office and hails from the region, says he is torn between his loyalties to his people, Kenyan Somalis, and sympathizing with tens of thousands of famine-stricken Somalis.
“The old refugees have caused us a lot of troubles in terms of security and environment, yet we can’t rise up against the new arrivals because doing that will be inhuman,” he said. “We share religion, language and culture. They’re our Somali brothers and they’re fleeing from hunger and wars.”
Bathe said he only has eight camels and 10 sheep left because refugees have cut down trees and used nearby lands, either to settle on or to graze their own animals. He said in better days, before refugees came in 1991, he had 70 camels, 100 sheep and 55 cows.
Police say they have seen recent clashes between longtime residents and refugees because some locals are not happy with the refugees’ presence.
“They are a group of locals who terrorize the refugees,” said Nelson Shilunji Taliti, the police commander in Dadaab. “There is animosity between them. But it not serious because there is no fighting going on, but it is something that can explode in the near future.”
In August, he said, gunmen opened fire on a bus ferrying refugees from Somalia. No one was hurt, but when Kenyan security forces went to the area, the attackers fired at police.
“They were just criminals who are after money and wanted to rob new refugees,” he said.
Other locals complain that the refugees cut down trees to build shelters or use as firewood. Locals also complain that aid agencies hire refugees as cheap labor and give more assistance to refugees than to needy locals, something aid groups deny.
Locals also say they fear the fragile environment is being threatened.
Bashir Ahmed Bihi, who came to Kenya as a refugee in 1991, said refugees cut down trees to earn money for clothing and food that is not included in their rations.
“When we came here, it was full of trees, grass and animals,” he said. “But now the area has become a desert, something that shows the degradation it went through over the years.”
But he said locals have also benefited from free services set up by aid groups, such as schools, water and health services.
“It cuts both ways,” he said. “We benefited from them and we are grateful for that. They benefited from us too.”
The U.N.’s refugee agency says it has tried to address locals’ concerns by spending $2.7 million on local projects from 2009 to 2010. Those include environmental projects and health facilities, said Fafa Olivier Attidzah, the head of the agency’s sub-office at Dadaab.
“We have done a lot. It is not commensurate with the damage, but, you know, there is a progress especially for the last two years,” he said.
The Kenyan government has long stressed the need to pacify Somalia — whose lawlessness is threatening its security — and urged U.N. agencies to set up camps for Somali refugees inside their country.
But Attidzah said the bigger problem lies across the border and that Somalia needs a political solution.
Locals like Bathe, the Kenyan elected official, say they have more immediate problems.
“We used to have an abundance of milk after our animals ate their fill,” Bathe said. “Now animals and people are hungry.”