Chief prosecutor of the ICC – Moreno-Ocampo – jets into Kenya on Thursday in his efforts to bring to justice those who planned and financed the murder of over 1300 Kenyans in last year’s post-election violence. It is not clear exactly what Ocampo will demand of the president and his premier. Both men have close associates in the cabinet implicated in the murder of Kenyans. It is highly doubtful that the ICC will get anything out of the current Kenyan government – I can’t imagine the Kenyan police arresting any of the powerful ethnic chiefs in the cabinet. Wanjiku may have to wait a little longer for justice to be served.

And in other news, Kenya’s demographic transition is here!! I have nothing against babies. But I was delighted to learn that Kenyan women are having less children – a drop of .3 children per woman – and that 9 out 10 consulted a health officer at some point during their pregnancy. The survey that generated these results is done every five years and included over 10,000 Kenyan households. Other positives include the fact that vaccination rates had gone up and that up to 90% of rural women received some form of ante-natal care while pregnant (urban figure was 96%).

This sort of demographic transition has positives in many ways. Women having less children means that they are freed to do more to increase the GDP bottom line. It also means that GDP growth will not be gobbled up by an increase in population size.And perhaps most importantly, it means that women are becoming more and more empowered – the fact that they are able to control their fertility is an indicator of this (kudos to women from Central Kenya, 67% of them are in charge of their own fertility).

“There are other questions too. Should IDPs stay in rural areas or be resettled in towns? Providing the right amount of assistance is tricky as well. Too much, and an African government risks turning camps into subsidised slums. Too little, and people die.”

The above quote is from this weeks Economist Newspaper. As I have argued before, I think that the move to come up with a framework to protect IDPs on the Continent is a charade. I don’t get how the likes of Mugabe (one of the chief displacers of people on the Continent) are supposed to be entrusted with protecting the same people. Having UNHCR do the job sounds good but is riddled with huge moral hazard problems – as illustrated by the above quote.

Meanwhile, this is the kind of life that many an African autocrat (and soon the effects of climate change) forces his fellow citizens to live.

Researchers have discovered a trend in the habits of mosquitoes. The little insects are feeding on human blood earlier than they used to. This means that more and more people get bitten earlier in the evening before they get to sleep under bed nets – which in turn translates into higher malaria infection rates. Bed nets lower infection rates by a whole 40%. Now researchers are urging people to use mosquito repellents. Personally, I don’t think this will fly. I for one do not like the “tourist smell” of repellents (I still don’t get how tourists stand themselves smelling like that!). I would advocate for a more aggressive approach to eliminating mosquitoes. DDT is bad, I know. But can’t we find other means of doing this? Plus malaria deaths, lost man hours because of disease burden and expenditures on anti-malaria medication may outweigh the cost of eliminating mosquitoes – thereby making the latter the more rational option.

Meanwhile, the WHO in a 2003 report says that malaria is still alive and well and continues to kill 2000 African children every day. That translates to 0.73 million children every year. I need not even add the figures for people over the age of 5.

Laurent Nkunda remains imprisoned in Rwanda – at least as far as a google search can tell. This even as his minions – or have they taken over already, given the fractious nature of rebel movements on the Continent? – who have been integrated into the Congolese army issued a warning that they are going to resume fighting if Kinshasa does not control its “indisciplined” soldiers.

I keep thinking that the arrest of Nkunda might have done what taking out the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia did – it spawned a variety of splinter rebel groups each with its own litany of grievances, which continue bargaining with them even harder.

This may be counter-intuitive, but in the fight against rebel movements may be the protagonists – in this case Kinshasa, Kigali and other concerned parties – might find it more useful to strengthen the stronger movements and use them to take out the weaker ones with the guarantee that once they do this they will be given better terms at the negotiating table. This approach would eliminate “security dilemma” concerns since the governments would be supplying the strong rebel group with arms.

There are of course a ton of commitment problems that arise out of this approach. For one the government would not want the rebel group to get too strong. How to guarantee this is not very clear. Secondly, it would be hard to get guarantees from governments that they will not take out the rebel movement militarily in a more conventional attack after the latter take out the splinter groups who thrive on asymmetric warfare. May be a guarantee of integration afterwards? A cabinet job?

- if you think this is nuts, look at Iraq and possibly Afghanistan.

Kenyan parliamentarians are the highest paid in Africa. Indeed, the 222 members of the August House make more than US senators do in a year. Quite a job they have.

All they have to do now is do their job right. According to a Parliamentary Powers Index the Kenyan parliament has a score of 31%. The same score as Mauritania and Zimbabwe and lower than places like Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast. Even the Sierra Leonean parliament did better than Kenya on this index. This index is not the final word on parliamentary performance, but Marende and his team could be doing a better job. A stronger committee system, better laws, more transparency of parliamentary procedures and less sleaze could be good places to start.

A higher score on the index is clearly correlated with better government, with members of the OECD up top. Wake up Marende and Co.

Due credit to: M. Steven Fish and Matthew Kroenig, The Handbook of National
Legislatures: A Global Survey (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009)

As usual, Mutahi Ngunyi has a provocative piece in the Sunday Nation. I am sort of sympathetic to his idea of ethnic suicide (by which he means dumping ethnic identities and what they stand for) – I was in Eldoret and Timboroa for two days this summer and saw with my own eyes the fruits of ethnic hatred. The short-term operationalization of the idea may be problematic though. To make Kenyans out of Luos and Kikuyus and Kalenjins will take time. Because of this the process of “ethnic suicide” ought to take place sub-consciously, for if it is “managed” the end results or the process itself may be nasty.

Gitau Warigi pours some cold water on Bethuel Kiplagat’s TJRC. I like his argument. I am always baffled by how much we spend on such useless commissions only to be rewarded with “classified reports” issued to the president.  Philip Ochieng‘ has an interesting piece on ethnicity and politics in Kenya. I wonder how many politicians read his column… And Kwendo Opanga just gave me one more reason to think that Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka is as misguided as ever. This is not to say that the alternatives to Mr. Musyoka in the post-Kibaki dispensation are any better. Woe unto Wanjiku.

And in other news, is this legitimising crime or what?

I am a regular reader of Bill Easterly’s Aid Watch blog. I like his skepticism with regard to the efficacy of aid in the developing world. But every time I read something by him I am always left wondering; what do African finance ministers’ think? I would appreciate having some opinions from the people he keeps writing about – because otherwise he is no better than the WB or IMF clowns who conduct their business from a distance without local input. Easterly’s solutions-based approach could do with a little bit of input from third world government officials.

Amos Wako should resign. Together with Keriako Tobiko. I used to think that the latter was dedicated to true justice but it turns out that he is also beholden to powerful individuals within Kenya’s upper class and emerging thuggish new upper class.

All I have to say is that this is a sign of gross state incompetence.

Who will stand for justice and the rights of Wanjiku? Have we gone too far into this culture of impunity that murderers are set free right in front of our eyes because of their connections?

But then again, who am I kidding? Is it not the government of Kenya that has a number of high ranking cabinet ministers who planned and financed the killing of ordinary Kenyans early last year? When will it dawn on Wanjiku that she is on her own?

It has been 25 years since the 1984-85 Ethiopian famine that inspired Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to write the song do they know it’s christmas?

The Ethiopian government is marking the anniversary in the most appropriate way: by appealing for food aid from the international community to assist the more than 6.2 million of its citizens who are faced with starvation sans food aid. Yes, over the last 25 years the government of Ethiopia has not been able to put in place systems to guarantee its people food security. It is almost like 1985 never happened. Agriculture  (which is dominated by coffee) accounts for over 40% of GDP and makes up 60% of Ethiopian exports (CIA factbook). Now, I am no expert on agricultural economics or on Ethiopia per se but I am willing to bet a few hundred shillings that Addis must be favoring cash-cropping over basic food security. I guess it is just a lot easier to tax coffee exports than peasant agriculture – especially if you have an expensive autocratic system to maintain.

I say food aid should be conditioned on Meles Zenawi loosening his grip on power. Just like food aid during the last famine helped prolong the civil war at the time (see Alex de Waal), giving Zenawi food aid without any preconditions will just continue to perpetuate the very system that has been unable to guarantee food security for Ethiopians. Sen’s beliefs on autocracies and famines are partly true. Ethiopians continue to have these cycles of famine because Addis does not have to listen to the average peasant in Afar.

This does not mean that we should heartlessly sit back and watch millions of people die. No, those that can should assist as many people as is possible. However, while at it, the international community should insist on fairer government in Addis. It doesn’t have to be about regime change through elections or those other democratic stuff. All is needed is a guarantee of the chance for average Ethiopians to live decent lives without having to worry about major famines every decade or so.

Macharia Gaitho has a rather hard hitting editorial piece in the Daily Nation today. His rather utopian idealization of the revolutionary Kenyan peasantry aside (they are very complicit in the creation of the mess that is Kenya today), I think he raises some serious questions that the country – and especially the ruling class – needs to revisit as it celebrates Kenyatta Day.

Happy Kenyatta Day!!