Fero­cious polit­i­cal noise rips apart soci­eties and dri­ves away investors. This is what is hap­pen­ing in Kenya today. With elec­tions eleven months away, var­i­ous polit­i­cal lead­ers are hurl­ing insults and accu­sa­tions at each oth­er caus­ing pol­i­tics to over­shad­ow all else. What they don’t seem to real­ize is that their ardent sup­port­ers habit­u­al­ly fol­low suit and ulti­mate­ly split the Nation there­by upset­ting ser­vice deliv­ery in the Pub­lic and Pri­vate sec­tors. This is the exact oppo­site of the civ­i­lized pol­i­tics that the 2010 con­sti­tu­tion envisages.

I was recent­ly hav­ing a busi­ness lunch when a lady seat­ed near me said with exas­per­a­tion, ‘If I hear the name Covid one more time, I will scream!’

Recent­ly, I was hon­ored to pay a cour­tesy call to His Excel­len­cy Luke Williams, the Aus­tralian High Com­mis­sion­er to Kenya. We dis­cussed mat­ters of mutu­al inter­est includ­ing Green Growth and the vast oppor­tu­ni­ties that both coun­tries present to their peo­ple. Because wom­en’s eco­nom­ic empow­er­ment is a crit­i­cal part of the Green econ­o­my, I was elec­tri­fied to learn about Aus­trali­a’s pas­sion and record for advanc­ing wom­en’s eco­nom­ic empowerment.

We are liv­ing in dif­fi­cult eco­nom­ic times. In 2020, glob­al For­eign Direct Invest­ment (FDI) flows fell sharply by 35 per­cent. This was akin to los­ing just over one third of the water in your tank. If you were using that water for irri­ga­tion, at least a third of your crops would poten­tial­ly with­er and die. Decreased invest­ment and the accom­pa­ny­ing depressed econ­o­my have result­ed in a death of jobs across the country.

We are liv­ing in dif­fi­cult eco­nom­ic times. In 2020, glob­al For­eign Direct Invest­ment (FDI) flows fell sharply by 35 per­cent. This was akin to los­ing just over one third of the water in your tank. If you were using that water for irri­ga­tion, at least a third of your crops would poten­tial­ly with­er and die. Decreased invest­ment and the accom­pa­ny­ing depressed econ­o­my have result­ed in a death of jobs across the country.

In exact­ly one year’s time, Kenyans will be troop­ing to vot­ing booths across the coun­try to vote for hun­dreds of lead­ers of their choice. Amongst them will be near­ly six mil­lion first-time vot­ers — young peo­ple who were not of age in 2017 when we last vot­ed. They will com­prise a crit­i­cal swing-vote that can eas­i­ly decide the elec­tions. This youth deserve to be pre­sent­ed with a menu of far-sight­ed lead­ers whose par­ties must be known for their respec­tive ideologues.

A recent World Bank advi­so­ry on water man­age­ment in Kenya has stirred nec­es­sary debate on the way we man­age water in our coun­try. In the advi­so­ry, the World Bank called for new con­ser­va­tion levies and increased reg­u­la­to­ry charges for water com­pa­nies. The pro­posed con­ser­va­tion levies will go towards con­ser­va­tion of water resources. This how­ev­er means that water bills will increase a fact that is leav­ing a sour taste in the mouths of Kenyans who con­tin­ue to expe­ri­ence both water scarci­ty and water inequality.