Author Archives: baileypa

During July this year, protests across Kenya broke out. The protests consisted of two distinct movements: the resumption of Kenya’s leading opposition party, Azimio’s, street protests and upheaval surrounding the Kenyan government’s proposed tax hikes. 

After last year’s August election, the Azimio party’s former presidential candidate, Ralia Odinga, has been claiming that the election was rigged against him and current President William Ruto should not be president. Since March of 2023, Odinga’s supporters have been protesting in the streets of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, but protests were suspended in May for talks with the government. Protests were scheduled to continue on July 19, 2023 when talks with the Kenyan government failed to reach peace. Protests erupted in Nairobi, and became even larger when Kenyans opposing the government’s proposed tax hikes joined and sparked other large protests across the country. 

This unfortunately ended up in Kenyan police using extreme violence in an attempt to stop the protests and prevent more from joining. Police reportedly used tear gas and other acts of extreme violence on protesters, resulting in at least 20 protestors being killed during July of 2023. 

Since July, more of these cases of excessive police violence in Kenya have surfaced. Around 500 cases of police killings have surfaced since 2019, with many of these cases going unreported. One example of this would be back in January of 2022, when around 37 bodies were discovered in the River Yala in western Kenya. Most of the bodies bore deep cuts all over them and severed fingers, with a few having been suffocated with bags. The case was still ongoing by the end of 2022, but the main suspects were killed on their way to court. 

This issue of extreme police violence and corruption of power in Kenya is a very serious problem. The country has recently been undergoing much change, with police responding very harshly to mostly peaceful protests, and facing very little repercussions or push for taking responsibility in the aftermath, since they hold so much power. 

As a part of Kenya’s Vision 2030 plan, the country has been simultaneously building their economy and pushing towards sustainable efforts through ecotourism. Ecotourism is a term that refers to the push (and trend) to move towards sustainable travel and traveling to natural areas. This is meant to generate revenue for the country/region, as well as for the local communities through hotels, resorts, stores, etc. 

Kenya has many conservatories (basically National Parks) for the purpose of protecting the wildlife there, and to produce profit through visiting tourists. Many of these conservatories have resorts and private camps around and in them, most of which are very expensive and luxurious. These resorts, although a little elitist, do generate enough money to fund the conservatories and the local communities. 

Ecotourism is often viewed as something completely beneficial, but it does have consequences. The idea does push for more sustainable travel, but traveling in general does produce problems with air pollution as a result of the increased amounts of air, water, and car traffic coming into the area. With the increasing amounts of tourists visiting Kenya since the early 2000’s, this type of pollution could become a huge problem if the country is not prepared to combat it. 

I will say, however, Kenya does have one of the strictest plastic bans in the world, with the introduction of an incredibly restrictive ban on single-use plastic bags to clean up the country’s cities and protect their conservatories. Then, in 2020, an additional ban on any single-use plastic products in any conservation area, resulting in many of the surrounding areas and resorts going completely plastic free. 

Kenya has made such a huge effort towards being more sustainable, even though they are not the wealthiest or more developed country. Their efforts tell us, especially us Americans, that we need to do better to help protect and preserve the planet. We have far more funds and resources, and therefore absolutely no excuse. We all share this planet, regardless of what country we share allegiance to. Besides, without the Earth, it wouldn’t evenexist at all.

In 2008, Kenya introduced their Vision 2030 plan, which aims to“transform Kenya into a ‘newly-industrializing, middle income country providing a high quality of life to all its citizens in a clean and secure environment.’” The plan consists of three pillars: economic, social, and political.

Achievement in the economic pillar would consist of growth in six sectors: Tourism, Agriculture & Livestock, Wholesale & Retail, Trade, Manufacturing, Financial Services, Business Process Offshoring, and IT-Enabled Services; which combined, would raise the country’s GDP growth rate 10% over a number of years. 

The social pillar aims to improve the overall quality of life for all Kenyans by achieving development in eight social sectors: Education & Training, Health, Water & Sanitation, Environment, Housing & Urbanization, Gender, Youth, and Sports & Culture. These sectors also include developments in disability accessibility and special provisions for previously marginalized communities. 

Lastly, the political pillar aims to create a better democratic and more equal political system for the Kenyan people. This was originally meant to be achieved through the introduction of a new constitution, which was put in place in 2010 by Kenya’s President Kibaki. The new constitution put in place a better system of checks and balances, as well as more protections for all citizens, especially those of minority and previously marginalized groups.

So far, Vision 2030 has aided Kenya in the growth of its GDP and modernizing the country’s infrastructure and facilities. Progress continues to be made and it is still unclear if all of Kenya’s goals will be able to be achieved by 2030, but they have made much progress thus far that has served the Kenyan people well.