By Professor Ronoh,
25/09/2009
Members
Re: Reforms and Economic Development
Boiywo invitation for review of the direction and the way forward is timely. KassFM has also been running very useful commentaries on the same. Perhaps we need to give greater priority to reforms and economic development.
Agenda four of the national accord and the new constitution require a more effective participation largely because these are instruments to reconstitute the nation with guaranteed equal opportunities for all. However, our participation continues to be very limited or almost non-existent. Besides our individual opinions, we have not established mechanisms for effective participation.
Yet we have some lessons. We made limited contributions to Kriegler and Waki Reports and now we are chasing Hague among other options. Except for TJRC which is yet to take off, our representation in the other reform committee (IIEB, Boundaries Review Commission, etc) is amazingly limited
Lately, KassFM has promoted the idea of Council of Elders. Historians should help us to know how and when lost this important institution. Nevertheless, is may be a step in the right direction. But professionals will have to provide knowledge based support.
More importantly, assuming that instruments of equal opportunity are in place, we should reserve and dedicate more attention to economic development. We are a gifted and very talented people. We have to exploit these potentials in all fronts.
The athletic fraternities are doing a commendable job. May be we should all do that. Recently, I witnessed the launching of Mara International Marathon. It did more on promoting the cohesion of the neighboring communities, particularly Masais and their cousins Kalenjins than anything I have seen in recent times.
The proper agenda for RVDA and other agencies such as EMO is to focus on the economic development for the Rift Valley Region.
H. Rono
23/09/2009Dear ColleaguesRe: Political Development with Vision and MissionWe have not maintained communication for sometimes. There have been manyreasons for that. We had to see how Coalition Government works. We had tosee the structure and the process of the agenda four (4) of the NationalAccord. We even had to wait and see the functioning of the 10th Parliamentunder the Coalition System.More importantly, we had to wait and see emerging policies for the realbusiness; social and economic development including the attendantliberalization and globalization.We are sure therefore that we have learned enormously during theintervening period. The global grading of virtually all the things that wehave seen seems to stand at B-. It is not bad because we have been able tosustain peace for at least nearly 20 months. Parliament developedremarkable standing orders and used them to assert itself and for that wecould rightly rate B+.Many negative things have come to pass: poverty, drought, famine,environmental degradation and attendant Mau debate, and diseases thatinclude swine flu. The nation and the various regions of the nation arevirtually struggling with these things. Like Parliament, Professionals mayneed to write their own standing orders and use them to be more assertivein addressing these things.The political arena appears to be more confusing than even before and maybe because of the Coalition, individuals, communities, tribes, politicalparties and/or other manipulations that are yet to be known.If we may recall, in the beginning the vision and the mission was thereforms and the new constitution. And that is how things like ODM came-up.This vision and mission is presently at the back seat driven by somecommittee of experts that may not even be answerable to any constituencyof the people of Kenya.We need to revisit this vision and mission and if not possible we thenaddress other things and forget any pretence. We need to return topolitical development with vision and mission.Kimaru BoiywoAssociate DirectorRift Valley Development Association (RVDA)
23/09/2009
Dear ColleaguesRe: Political Development with Vision and MissionWe have not maintained communication for sometimes. There have been manyreasons for that. We had to see how Coalition Government works. We had tosee the structure and the process of the agenda four (4) of the NationalAccord. We even had to wait and see the functioning of the 10th Parliamentunder the Coalition System.More importantly, we had to wait and see emerging policies for the realbusiness; social and economic development including the attendantliberalization and globalization.We are sure therefore that we have learned enormously during theintervening period. The global grading of virtually all the things that wehave seen seems to stand at B-. It is not bad because we have been able tosustain peace for at least nearly 20 months. Parliament developedremarkable standing orders and used them to assert itself and for that wecould rightly rate B+.Many negative things have come to pass: poverty, drought, famine,environmental degradation and attendant Mau debate, and diseases thatinclude swine flu. The nation and the various regions of the nation arevirtually struggling with these things. Like Parliament, Professionals mayneed to write their own standing orders and use them to be more assertivein addressing these things.The political arena appears to be more confusing than even before and maybe because of the Coalition, individuals, communities, tribes, politicalparties and/or other manipulations that are yet to be known.If we may recall, in the beginning the vision and the mission was thereforms and the new constitution. And that is how things like ODM came-up.This vision and mission is presently at the back seat driven by somecommittee of experts that may not even be answerable to any constituencyof the people of Kenya.We need to revisit this vision and mission and if not possible we thenaddress other things and forget any pretence. We need to return topolitical development with vision and mission.Kimaru BoiywoAssociate DirectorRift Valley Development Association (RVDA "
