ELECTION GIMIC FOR WOMEN

What the government is trying to do is buy votes from women too just it has done to the youth fraternity. Most of our challenges which our communities are encoutering is to see food on the table and these culmunates the 50% poor communities within urban and semi urban areas. With the hardship encoutered in our society the government is dangling with the kity while the common mwananchi doesnt know that the same cash being dangled to them is their own revenue being collected annually.

The Government is reaching out to the country’s crucial voting bloc by giving out Sh500 million under the Women Enterprise Fund, with a pledge to triple the kitty to Sh3 billion next year.

Gender and Sports minister Maina Kamanda was quick to distance the release of the first tranche of the Sh1 billion kitty from the electioneering goodies, stating that the fund was a commitment President Kibaki made to the women last year.

“This fund was set up last year by the President to empower women and today, we are giving out the first allocation of the fund to facilitate enterprise development among women. We are not doing this for political reasons,” he said.

But the leaders of women financial institutions who were present at the official launch of the fund at the ministry’s offices at NSSF Building declared at a victory for their gender.

The release of the Sh500 million, which would be disbursed through selected 12 micro-financial institutions and the fund’s committees in each constituency, comes only 13 days to the General Election in which President Kibaki will be seeking to defend his seat on the Party of National Unity (PNU) ticket.

His challengers, who have dismissed the women fund and the youth fund as ploys to attract votes, are Mr Raila Odinga of ODM and Mr Kalonzo Musyoka of ODM Kenya.

Mr Musyoka and ODM Pentagon member William Ruto declared that the emancipation of the women and youth needs a comprehensive program of timed targets and not short term measures.

“How can they claim to be empowering women by releasing cheques when we know very well that the Sh1 billion youth fund is still shrouded in clouds? The Government has been unfair to the women of this country and ODM Kenya will change that when we take over power,” said Mr Musyoka.

On his part, Mr Ruto said the Kibaki administration was engaging in meaningless short-term interventions that could not last long and stated that ODM has a clear program on how to uplift the welfare of women and the youth.

“Both the women and youth funds are gestures of tokenism which will not have any meaningful impact to the plight of women and youth in this country. To be able to create opportunities for women and the youth, you need a complete shift to a comprehensive program. Short term myopic gestures targeting patronage will not succeed,” he said.

The Youth Enterprise Fund was also conceived in June 2006 and President Kibaki launched it in February this year where a total of Sh1 billion was given out. It is meant to draw the country’s youth who are most hit by unemployment to engage in income generating activities.

As the two leaders dismissed the launch of the fund in separate phone interviews, Mr Kamanda submitted that the Government has, in addition to the Sh1 billion kitty, put in place measures to give women a prominent role in the development of the country. He cited the review of laws that criminalise discrimination against women, enactment of the Sexual Offences Act, ratification of a convention to eliminate gender violence and the setting aside of one-third of public service jobs for women.

“The President has shown his determination to empower women to take their rightful place in socio-economic development. What we are doing today bears the testimony to the Government’s commitment to integrate women in the process of national development,” he said of the women who form majority of the country’s 14.3 million registered voters.

Most of our women lagislators should encourage this or ignore it. Remembering that our current situation is to get something for our families on the table we should think before we vote we should not vote with our stomaches neither our voes be bought but we should vote wisely .

Zachariah Ochieng
Mother and Child Mission Centre (Kenya)
Centre Director

ELECTION

GENERAL ELECTION - 2007

With the elections of December 2007 in Kenya women have been the worst hit in this general elections be it parliamentary or civic elections. Most women have been battered by the male counterparts as if the world belongs to men dominance only.

Mother and Child Mission Centre Kenya has foreseen this as the worst Gender based violence against women as a whole leave alone the family squamishes which occurs on daily basis. With just some few weeks to come to the general elections women have gone further in this election to elect their own and to foresee that gender based issues in the parliamentary assemblies are passed.

Most of the women who have the empowerment have gone ahead to assist other weak candidates who are viewing for the same positions as men to see them through young women and youth have to forge ahead and say even women can be leaders of this country and especially the most dominated areas by men since the independence of this country Kenya.

What can the communities do right now is to elect leaders not gender, be it women or men Mother and Child Mission Centre Kenya is looking on issues where by women have been critisized that they cannot be leaders while a leader cannot be just a man in this world.

We should focus our minds to our women candidates for the first time and overlook our men if they can be trusted really for the last years since independence other communities have never seen nor had a female candidate. The worst lesson should be let men vote for women and be counted as real men and let women vote for their fellow women and be counted as courageous women not to vote for men due to their masculinity but for their empathy and virtures of good leadership not through tribal lines nor through their background, but through self aspiration and determination that they too can lead this nation to the extreme of good governance and more so through better future for all women and the children of this country.

Let their be fair election for all women -

MOTHER AND CHILD MISSION CENTRE KENYA
CENTRE DIRECTOR
ZACHARIAH OCHIENG
TEL: 254720 935561

THE POOR REMAINS TO BE WOMEN

With Great empasis on the UNDP survey Mother and Child Mission Centre Kenya has foreseen that most of the Poorest and more marginalised within the society are women of this country Kenya:

In all matters parataining to education, health, wealth, among other lines women suffer more as compared to their men counterparts.

A new United Nations report has revealed shocking disparities between Kenya’s poorest and the richest regions.

The report also says that 50 per cent of Kenyans are living below the poverty line.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report states that four out of the eight provinces recorded an increase in poverty levels in 2005.

“Compared to the year 2004, human poverty has increased marginally in all the provinces, except Nyanza, Western and Coast,” says the Kenya National Human Development Report 2006.

At least one in every two Kenyans live below the poverty line, while the number of those living in abject poverty has deepened. These are the Kenyans without access to health care, including doctors, water and proper nutrition.

Richest households

Paradoxically, the report says that the 10 per cent richest households control more than 42 per cent of incomes, while the poorest 10 per cent command 0.76 per cent.

According to the report released yesterday, the biggest increase in poverty levels was recorded in North Eastern Province, whose human poverty index rose from 43 to 50.5 per cent.

In Nairobi, the figures rose from 26 per cent in Nairobi in 2004, to 29 per cent in 2005, Central 30 per cent to 36 per cent, and Eastern 39 to 41 per cent. Whereas the indices stabilised at 39 per cent at the Rift Valley and 43 per cent at the Coast, they declined in Western, from 40 per cent to 37, and in Nyanza, 41 to 38.

Although the economy has grown to nearly six per cent, the reduction in the number of Kenyans living below the poverty line has been slow.

In terms of regions, Nairobi, Mombasa and Kericho are the best places to live in.
This means that people in the three towns enjoy high standards of economic, health, personal and food security, among other measures on which the scores were given.

While Turkana, Wajir and Garissa are the worst districts to reside in due to myriad of hardships, including insecurity.

Human development

The report examines seven realms of the human security, which are considered central to the improvement of the welfare of human beings.

These are economic, health, food, community, political, personal and environmental and are measured using mathematical models that come up with a summary measure of human development.

The final figure is referred to a Human Development Index (HDI).
Discussing the poverty levels, the report says the poorer people have little or no hope of bringing up a child to the age where they can benefit from the free primary education introduced by the Narc Government in 2003, let alone send them to a secondary school.

In terms of life expectancy, the report notes that a person born in Nyanza Province can expect to live 16 less years than his counterpart in Central. Life expectancy in Meru is double that of Mombasa, 68.6 and 33.1 years respectively.

About 93 per cent of women in North Eastern Province have no education at all, compared to three per cent in Central Province.

Again, Central Province fares far better on health matters, compared to all the others. Thus, whereas it has one doctor for about 20,000 people, in North Eastern there is one doctor for 120,000 people.

Every child in Central Province attends primary school compared to about one out of three in North Eastern Province.

The report also says that the proportion of households with piped water in their homes in urban areas is five times than in rural areas — about 19.2 per cent and 3.8 per cent respectively.
It calls for fairer distribution of resources, equal opportunities, improved security and greater investment in technology.

“The country has to institutionalise income protective mechanisms, among them the minimum wage, wage indexation and progressive taxation,” it recommends.

Life expectancy is surprisingly highest in North Eastern Province at 62.2 years followed by Central at 60.4 years and lowest in Nyanza, at 41.7 years and Western Province, 49.8 years.
A person born in Rift Valley Province can expect to live to be 59.1 years, Eastern 57.6 years and Coast 52 years.

Turkana, which is at the tail end, has an index of 0.172, Wajir (0.256) and Garissa (0.267). Other 10 districts in the bottom 10 are Makueni, Tana River, Ijara, Mandera, West Pokot, Samburu and Kajiado.

Agricultural areas

The districts boasting high quality of life are generally urban centres, with industrial concentrations or high potential agricultural areas. Also in the top 10 are Maragua, Tharaka Nithi, Nyeri, Embu, Mt Elgon, Moyale and Koibatek.

The report recognises the economic growth, which started in 2003 and saw the Gross Domestic Product grow to 4.9 per cent in 2004 and 5.8 per cent in 2005.

Due to registered economic growth, the country’s general HDI has increased from 0.52 in 2004 to 0.532 in 2005. However, Kenya is still ranked behind Uganda but ahead of Tanzania in East Africa.

The report cites the hot spots of chronic poverty, where people live on less than a dollar a day, as being concentrated in North Eastern, Eastern, Coast, Nyanza and Western provinces.