Situation In Kenya Research Articles

Rhetoric-implementation gap in health policy and health services delivery for a rural population in a developing country

Abstract Health development in developing countries invariably involve the improvement of existing health structures, the development of new strategies to cope with new demands in situations of scarce resources, and the implementation of programmes which could reach the majority of the population. Most of the population in developing countries is rural. 1n some cases, people are scattered and are difficult to reach. This is the situation in Kenya. The country's population is about 90% rural. Rural health programmes designed to provide services for that proportion of the population include a hierarchical system beginning with mobile clinics, dispensaries, sub-health centres and health centres. This paper discusses the system available to the rural population, how it is implemented and goes on to show that the Kenyan health development programme stresses the improvement of hospitals in urban areas rather than the improvement of rural health services. The rhetoric in health planning is not consistent with actual health programmes.

Modes of production and Kenyan dependency

This paper aims to show that the concept of a world capitalist mode of production is necessary to analyse Kenyan dependency, and also aims to develop some concepts with which to explore class relations in Kenya. First we shall show that the attempt to develop the alternative conceptualisation of the ‘capitalist mode of production in Kenya’ is an impossibility. Secondly, another alternative of ‘pre‐capitlist mode(s)’ is considered and also rejected. Third, a complex of more specific concepts is generated which taken together can define the Kenyan situation more adequately, and involves an examination of Kenya's position in the world capitalist mode of circulation and production of commodities, and the position of different classes within this set of production/ circulation relations.

The nationalization of Swahili in Kenya

ABSTRACTThe decree of 4 July, 1974, by President Kenyatta, proclaiming Swahili as the national language of Kenya is discussed with reference to questions of feasibility and expediency. The alternatives to the President's decree are considered, and reasons for the decision are suggested.Comparison of the status of Swahili in the capital cities of Kenya (Nairobi) and Tanzania (Dar es Salaam) is made to illustrate the special difficulties confronting the Kenya government in making the President's decree effective. The parliamentary response is crucial, but the dominance of English in Nairobi, the capital city, where Swahili has not always been much valued, indicates a wider gap between intention and the possibility of fulfilment than in Dar es Salaam.The need for proficiency in Swahili is viewed in the Kenya situation, and this is related to what is linguistically appropriate. The nationalization of Swahili results in secularization of a language that found its normal expression in the setting of Islam. What is linguistically appropriate in Swahili on the national level is often inappropriate to members of the Swahili coastal community. Kenyans are likely to opt for their own modifications of Standard Swahili, basing this on the Mombasa dialect, but up-country Swahili is the foundation upon which greater proficiency can be achieved. (Language planning, language policy, regional and social stratification of varieties, Swahili; Kenya, Tanzania.)

Wanderers on the face of Africa

nnHERE are more than 1-2 million refugees in Africa. This gives Africa the A highest ratio of refugees to total population of any continent in the world. With one out of every 360 persons on the continent a refugee, the problem is of enormous consequence, and in 1976 the burden to individual African countries has become considerable. Most governments in Africa and over sixty international agencies and private organizations are engaged in efforts to alleviate the situation. Yet despite the obvious importance of the topic there have been relatively few studies dealing with the refugee problem in Africa. Moreover, most observers have concentrated on either the political, ecological or economic upheavals that have led to the mass movements of persons across international frontiers, or have focused on the ethnic clashes which have spawned not only refugee movements but continuing intra-national tensions and dislocations. Few have explored the complex nature of the problem or identified the various reasons why solutions are so hard to find. This study focuses on the current refugee situation in Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and Botswana and in particular on those refugees who have come from southern Africa, including South Africa, Mozambique, Angola, Namibia, Rhodesia and Lesotho. In 1975 there were approximately 38,000 refugees in Zambia, including 22,000 from Angola, 10,000 from Mozambique and 6,000 from Namibia, South Africa and Rhodesia. This total included nearly 2,000 new refugees from Namibia who arrived in 1974 and early 1975. There were nearly 100,000 refugees in Tanzania, including 45,000 from Burundi, 14,000 from Rwanda and the rest from Mozambique, South Africa and Rhodesia. In Botswana, there were 4,500 refugees, 4,000 of them from Angola and the rest from South Africa,

The case of Jason Gor and fourteen others: a Luo succession dispute in historical perspective

Opening ParagraphIn June 1931, Daniel Odindo, chief of Asembo, resigned after seventeen years in office. Asembo was one of over twenty locations or chiefdoms through which the Luo were ruled by the colonial administration of Kenya; its population was no more than 20,000; it was over thirty miles from the Central Nyanza district headquarters at Kisumu; there was no mission station in the location. It possessed several bush schools, some small trading centres, a few acres of cotton, and a fishing harbour on Lake Victoria. Asembo was a backwater. But there were many parties to the dispute over the succession to Odindo. One of these was Archdeacon Owen, the local head of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) who lived at Maseno, thirty-five miles away in the Maragoli Hills which overlook Kisumu. Owen was a churchman who saw his vocation in bringing political and social as much as spiritual welfare, and was deeply conscious of the missionary's dependence upon the confidence of his African flock. His white supporters in his many political campaigns were more often to be found in England than in Kenya. One of these was Norman Leys, now retired from the Colonial medical service, the first well-informed critic of the Kenya situation and with access to the Labour Party. Leys thought that the Asembo case—then being pursued through the Colony's courts—might ‘prove to be the turning point in Kenya history and [might] become one of the famous trials of the world’. It was ‘perfectly terrific’. He believed he ‘could make a damned good book out of it’ but was thankful that Owen did not want him to take up the issue in England. ‘As well might an unknown medical practitioner in some French village have tried to get his country to undo the wrong done Dreyfus.’ But there was perhaps some hope that the Home Committee of the CMS might come to Owen's aid, for ‘the wizard-chief [Odindo's appointed successor] is obviously out to persecute the church’.

Bilingualism in the Educational System of Kenya

IN THIS ARTICLE, unless indicated otherwise, I will use the term 'bilingual' as cover term for people with a number of different language skills having in common only that they are not monolinguals. I' At present there are no statistics available by which it would be possible to assess accurately the number of bilingual speakers in Kenya or the prevalent patterns of bilingual behaviour. Some general observations can, however, be made. The Kiunguja dialect of Swahili is used extensively, usually in an attenuated form as a contact language between members of different language groups.(2) In the past two decades its r61le as a communal lingua franca has however undoubtedly decreased for reasons that will be considered in part later. ' Over the same period the use of English has correspondingly increased. At the moment it is the primary language of Central Government, of the law, of banking, and of large-scale industry and commerce. What G. Perren wrote some years ago remains true-not only is any African or Asian ineligible for a well-paid job without real practical facility in English, but he is unable to get the education that will qualify him for it except through the medium of English.'(4 To the extent that the vernacular languages and Swahili and English are used in distinct domains of language use and for different functions, the bilingual situation in Kenya can be considered to be relatively stable.' , This generalization does not apply to the language use of certain African communities in Nairobi or to the Asian communities among whom the use of Swahili in the one case and of English in the other appears to be replacing the use of the vernacular languages in certain respects, particularly among members of the younger generation.(6) It is probably a valid observation therefore to say that to be socially mobile in Kenyan society, which is to a certain extent linguistically stratified, it is essential to be bilingual in the usual sense of the term and advantageous to be trilingual. A person needs to be able to speak and read Swahili to the extent that he can understand newspapers and radio broadcasts and he needs to be able to speak, read and write English proficiently. For the purposes of intra-communal communication it is also desirable that the majority of the people should be literate in their Vernaculars. I would like to say something about each of these three linguistic needs in turn and the educational provision that has been made for their attainment. I will also attempt to relate present educational practice to past policies in so far as these policies have relevance to two major issues, viz. the question of the media of instruction in the schools and the related question of the stage at which English should be introduced into the school curriculum as a subject and as a medium.

The Present Situation in Kenya

Mr. Blundell is Minister without Portfolio in the Kenya Government and a member of the War Council set up to deal with the Emergency. This address was given by him to a joint meeting of the Royal African Society and the Royal Empire Society on November 25, 1954. Lord Chandos, D.S.O., M.C., was in the chair.

East Africa—Its Difficulties and Possibilities

Mr. Hunter was, until recently, the East African manager of Messrs. Dalgety and Co., Ltd., the well-known farmers' agents. He was also a Member of many East African war-time committees. This article is a reprint of the latter part of a lecture he gave, under the chairmanship of Lord Cranworth, at a combined meeting of the Royal African Society and the Royal Empire Society on the 29th March. In the first part, he had briefly described the East African war effort. He then went on to give his views on the racial situation in Kenya, starting with the problems of white settlement.