The Future Daily

THE FUTURE daily is out

Invest in growing Women and Youth Agri SME's

Many innovations are being practiced on pilot and on scale in the country when it comes to Agribusiness and Entrepreneurship. One aspect that is dear to me is that of Gender Transformative & Responsible Agribusiness Investments. Women in our rural communities have traditionally worked hard in their farms or family farms tiling to eke a living for their families' survival. 

It is important for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) operating in agriculture value chains to transform their thinking and practices in focusing on the role that women have played. Support should be channeled to businesses that compliment impact assessment and are investment readiness to which capital can be provided by impact investors.

Agri-SMEs that are making a positive impact in their community and are interested in optimizing that impact and have growth potential should be natured in order for their best practices to be scaled or replicated. For communities living near water bodies should invest on businesses in aquaculture and specifically palm and coconut oil value chains for coastal regions. SMEs from all agri-focused value chains should be identified and given the necessary support to grow.

For our communities to grow into sustainability and have greater impact, focus should be given on growing, replicating and scaling women’s economic empowerment through the growth of agribusinesses. 

Farming is cool for both women and youth, it still is and will be the back bone of our economic growth trajectory. If Government doesn't support Agriculture, then Kenya and Africa indeed will be headed the downward trend. How else will our economies achieve food security if investments are not put in agri SME's run by women and youth?

Thinking Green

This morning unlike all other mornings, my mind is fixated on the future of green and sustainability in our livelihoods. This for sure can only be achieved if we have disciplined values and principles that think of our future generations.

What we do now and how we nature the young ones, will determine the kind of future that our universe will turn out to be. Lets go green, lets ensure our future generations have a place they can call home. Let us instill values that they will pass on to their future generations as well.

Lets live, sleep, work, and go green.

President Obama arrives to deliver remarks on clean energy after a tour of a solar power array at Hill Air Force Base in Utah on April 3.  (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

Stupified South Africans in Xenophobic Stupor

The many of my fellow Africans looked with awe at South Africa as the land of opportunity and haven for tolerance going by the examples of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. But there has always been that cog that is Xenophobic violence that now promises to completely tarnish that image of hope that we so dearly held as Africans in a nation so young and promising yet so far in realizing its own potential. Many Africans are now fleeing South Africa in the fear of being attacked by fellow Africans. South Africans have stooped so low that they have turned against their fellow Africans.

The current numbers of about 3500 immigrants sleeping in crowded camps in search of a quick exit from a country that has decided to hate Africa. About five people have been killed, shops have been looted, homes have been shuttered and in the flames that engulf the dying, so cries Africa on what could have gone so wrong such that Africans could be so mad at Whites during Apartheid and after the illusion that was independence, only turn against their fellow Africans.

It is not lost in the memory of Africans that many nations in the continent, housed and fed many of the South Africans, including freedom fighters during the Apartheid rein. A number of south Africans today hold dual citizenship emanating from the dark days. What could have gone so wrong to elicit the eruption of xenophobic attacks?

Today many Africans are angered and calls for boycotts of all South African Products engulf many social media discourse. If this were to happen, then South Africa would come to realize that she needs the rest of Africa for her survival. It is South African products that dominate many shelves in quite a number of African Countries. It is South African Companies that are making crazy profits in other parts of Africa. Pretty much, South Africa produces more for foreign markets than it produces for its own. It is such an open foreign market that south Africa survives on when it comes to foreign trade. The ground is shifting and if so, South Africa will be the hardest hit.

I join many African brothers and sisters in calling for an end to the stupidity that is being practiced by a few ungrateful south Africans. Why is it that South Africans are attacking Africans and not whites?

Mr. Jacob Tsuma's calls came albeit too late. President Tsuma knows too well and has been witnessing from the comfort of his powerful office as many Africans burn at the flame of his people in Durban. I know for a fact that many white supremacists whose agenda is to celebrate the fall of Africa have been celebrating the current situation in South Africa. The leadership of the country that was so admired is now shaming itself without the fear of what portends their own comfort. President Tsuma needs to rise to the occasion and stop this madness.

The African Union on the other hand has been very silent, as is tradition, waiting on the sidelines as many Africans die only to emerge later when it is too late. 

My biggest worry is to all South Africans, mobilize your fellow country men, encourage them to go to school and stop this stupidity. Earn what you have worked for and regain your place in the continent. Failure of that, is being reduced to a village of hate mongers and a dimming star for a country we so cherished. I no longer want my children and their generation to ever want to grow in such a country. 

Terror on Campus and the Questions we should be interrogating as Citizens

Watching the pain on the faces of the parents and relatives of the students who were massacred in Garissa University leaves a lot of pain in my heart. Reading the stories of the survivors and messages of the departed moments before they were shot in cold blood is heartrending. There can never be justification for such heinous acts of terror meted on innocent souls.

I remember vividly the hope and aspiration among the University administration on the vision they had for the only University in the Northern frontier. All that is now on shaky grounds since it may not be reopened and even if it will be reopened, there will be no students from other parts of the country who would want to go learn there. Garissa University in the place where the G-United​ training programme was conducted. What was once an island of knowledge has now been turned into a ghost town haunted by the souls of the more than 140 students killed in the hands of Terror. Something radical must happen very quickly to wipe off Alshabaab from the face of earth. It requires the concerted efforts of all East Africans.

The stories about radicalization of our youth, need to be interrogated and any family that has a young person unaccounted for should be questioned and made to ensure their sons and daughters are up to good. It is our responsibility to ensure that we are all safe if we love this country and if we have aspiration for our sons and daughters to also grow in a peaceful country. Our security agents should stay in Somalia as long as it takes. We need to strengthen security on our porous borders so that we don't continually have to deal with runaway crime as is the case now.

The leadership of the Northern Frontier need to work together to ensure that they account for each and every member of the families.

The casual treatment of terror tips by the security agents need to be stopped. Whenever there is an imminent attack, it is the responsibility of the Government to advise its citizens on what to expect and what to do in case of an attack. There is nothing as good as a citizenry that is aware of what is happening. If the Government is serious about protecting its citizens, then we all need to know and be given travel advisories.

It will require concerted efforts of the civil society to begin to interrogate its work and engage the citizenry on matters security. Civic Education on security is paramount in this difficult times.

The biggest question that the Government needs to ponder is what kind of information do you need to provide the public in order for them to protect themselves. That responsibility starts with you Mr. President.

The Paradox of Need Versus Want

There is data and evidence to show that more adults decide to study and that at least half of part-time students are not only employed but also have pre-school children. There is no data to show what motivates Kenyan Politicians to go back to school apart from their quest to run for higher office, be more influential in order to gain government tenders and engage in more corrupt practices. Such are paradoxes of need versus want. We truly live in a very unequal world.

Of Sex and Sex Education for our Teens!

Of sex and sex education. Kenya lost 12,000 teenagers to the deadly scourge in the year 2014 alone. More children are now having sex as early as at the age of 8 and 9 years. With our moral compass already broken as a country, the fact that there is incest and rape in families and communities, only makes the situation even dire. 

See also: Teenage Sex is a National Crisis

There is a very very thin demarcation line between sex, sex education, condoms and condom use and HIV/AIDS. With more children having sex at the age of 8, how on earth can we as a country educate our children on safe methods of contraception? Should condoms be readily provided so that as our children get sexually active, safety will be a priority? Or should we ignore the fact and have more than 20,000 teenagers dying in 2015? 

See also standardmedia.co.ke/article - when-your-teenager-is-having-sex

What is moral between ensuring the safety of our children and ignoring the fact that they will still engage in early sex with or without intervention? 

See also: Teens are having sex, let them have it safely

For those Old men and Women who are having sex with children the age of their grand children shame on you. For those thinking that we shall just ignore the facts? Shame on you. 

It is high time we started the hard talk on matters safe sex for our teens in order to save our future generations. We do not want to become a country of old people just because we ignored the deadly facts. 

Let us all #DoSomeThing