Property Boom in Rural Kenya, Aid Accountability and Other Reports
Every week, RuralReporters.com collate reports on development issues in rural Africa and its environs.
This report includes some of our top picks from recent must-read research, interviews, blogs, and in-depth articles, carefully selected to help you keep up with global issues.
Here are some of the updates you may have missed from the previous week:
Property boom in rural Kenya creates ‘poor millionaires’
A growing number of Kenyans are selling their land – often below market prices – and wasting the cash. The rush for property has been driven in part by the establishment of Chuka University in 2004, which created demand for staff and student housing, according to Godfrey Murithi, a member of the county assembly.
That has been the pattern throughout much of central Kenya, as the government expanded the post-secondary education system, said Robert Mudida, an economist at the Strathmore Business School in Nairobi, the capital.
The property boom is swallowing up farmland as well as pastures, which has exacerbated sometimes violent tensions between herders and private landowners. “Property development in rural areas is leading to food insecurity, because land meant for agriculture production is being converted into buildings and sewerage,” said chairman of the Land Development and Governance Institute, a think tank in Nairobi.
A New Way to Help in Malawi: Village X’s Impact
Malawi’s misuse of aid is notorious. The sheer size of scandals in the country over the last few years is a testament to that. In 2011, aid to Malawi was stopped because a private jet for the president’s personal use was purchased using about £8 million of funds provided by multilateral institutions such as the World Bank.
Urban areas in Malawi have been seen improvement. However, on the whole inequality in Malawi seems to be getting worse, with most of Malawi’s poverty seen in rural areas. It is easy to attribute corruption and the disparity between the rich and poor in Malawi to greed, but a more thoughtful analysis shows that aid may not necessarily go where it needs to go. In Malawi’s case, funding primarily goes to urban areas and not rural villages.
Michael Buckler, the CEO of Village X, a nonprofit organization, talked to The Borgen Project about a new way of work around Malawi’s misuse of aid. He explained that while corruption is rampant, the solution is easy to get around. Rather than going through the government, why not go through the tribes and villages?
By providing aid directly to villages to develop ideas selected by group consensus of the village, Village X’s impact is a more democratic way of approaching the issue of poverty. In Buckler’s eyes, the traditional NGO methods of addressing a particular issue often do not work because most NGOs fail to consider the ecosystem surrounding the issue.
Health workers selling simple cures door-to-door are saving lives
To tackle childhood diseases in rural Africa, Living Goods founder Chuck Slaughter borrowed a page from the cosmetics giant Avon’s playbook, now with a tech twist.
Community health volunteers in rural Uganda and Kenya teach their neighbors about good health and sell them low-cost products to help achieve it, thanks to medical training and a kit they’ve received from the group.
Simple things such as bed nets, water filters and pregnancy check-ups can help communities greatly reduce mortality rates, health experts say. Globally, the leading causes of death for children under 5 are pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria, according to the World Health Organization. About 5.6 million children under age 5 died in 2016.
NGO wants FG to ensure accountability in rural projects
An NGO, Connected Development (CODE), has called on the three tiers of government to collaborate to ensure accountability in the implementation of rural community, projects to achieve national growth.
Mr Hamzat Lawal, Executive Director of CODE, believes “this will not only strengthen Nigeria’s democracy, but also help citizens focus attention on issues that can bring about service delivery in rural communities during electoral processes.”
He said that plans had been put in place to mobilise 5,000 election observers across the country in 2019 general elections to achieve the desired goal.
Stigma remains a substantial barrier in accessing HIV care in rural East Africa
A set of varied barriers adversely impact positive outcomes at different stages in the HIV care cascade in the rural East African context, according to a qualitative study recently published in PLOS ONE by James Ayieko and fellow researchers. This study highlights the important role played by factors ranging from the psychosocial (such as varied forms of stigma) to structural factors (such as poverty).
This study also draws attention to gendered differences when it comes to barriers accessing care: women more readily engaged in care despite potential stigma, whereas men avoided care in response to fears around being blamed and shamed about HIV infection.
The qualitative study focused on eight rural communities in Kenya and Uganda. From these eight communities, purposive and random stratified sampling techniques were used to identify candidates for in-depth interviews. At the time of the interview, of the 63 participants, 42 were engaged in HIV care, 21 were on antiretroviral therapy (ART) and a total of 21 were not engaged in care. The median age was 37 years (IQR 30-44); 34 were female, 36 were from Kenya and 27 were from Uganda.
Eastern Cape to build nine bridges in rural areas
Some Eastern Cape rural communities are set to benefit from the nine bridges that are to be constructed across the province between now and end of March next year. This is a joint partnership between the Eastern Cape Department of Transport, Safety and Liaison, the national department of Public Works and that of Defence and Military Veterans.
“This initiative will see engineers from the department and their counterparts in defence and public works putting together their skills and expertise for the benefit of poor and disadvantaged communities,” Eastern Cape transport department spokesperson, Unathi Bhinqose, said.
Rural development, land reform official gets 10 years in jail for fraud
A rural development and land reform official has been sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for fraud and two counts of theft in the Durban Commercial Crimes Court, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).
Spokesperson Natasha Kara said on Monday, 53-year-old Patrick Bhekumuzi Masoka was convicted of fraud, theft of livestock valued at R40 000 and theft of cattle valued at approximately R19 000. He was employed as a chief principal planner at the rural development and land reform department in KwaZulu-Natal and was a project manager of the department’s settlement and production land acquisition project.
Africa needs to cool down – urgently
As the world’s warmest continent and home to six out of the 10 hottest places in the world, Africa needs cooling more than most. We aren’t just talking about the relief of an air-conditioned home on a sizzling summer day or the convenience of a cold drink from the refrigerator. In many cases, cooling is a matter of life and death.
According to a July 2018 report, Chilling Prospects: Providing Sustainable Cooling for All, globally, 1.1-billion people don’t have cooling facilities and are considered at immediate risk. Nowhere is the problem more acute than in Africa, where 470-million people in rural areas don’t have refrigeration to ensure food and medicines are safe, and 630-million people in crowded cities have little or no cooling to protect them against intensifying heatwaves.
