PlusNews – Violet Tinah, 40, a resident of Korogocho slum in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, is living with HIV and was recently diagnosed with tuberculosis, but her biggest problem today is not disease – but hunger.

“When I went for the results that informed me that I had TB, I was very hungry; I’d had no breakfast and lunch and could barely walk,” she told IRIN/PlusNews. “I had to be supported and put in a wheelchair to collect the drugs.

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88373

IRIN – Four years after an innovative slum-upgrading project was launched in Huruma, to the northeast of the Kenyan capital, at least 200 households are now living in improved homes, complete with infrastructure such as running water, sewage connection, electricity, drainage, paving and renovated toilet blocks.

“We have at least 50 houses still under construction. We hope to complete these in the near future as the project comes to an end,” said Chiara Camozzi, project manager for the Italian NGO, COOPI, which spearheaded the project.

Initially planned to take three years (2005-2007), the 1.5 million euro (US$2.1 million) project has stretched into 2010 due to complications, such as the post-election violence of early 2008, which affected parts of Huruma. COOPI is the project’s implementing agency, with the Italian ministry of foreign affairs one of the main donors.

To begin with, the beneficiaries pay 20 percent of the cost of the house through local saving schemes, Camozzi said.

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88211

 (IRIN) – Faced with high food prices, low income and barely a patch of arable land, hundreds of residents of Nairobi’s densely populated slums have adopted a novel form of intensive agriculture: a farm in a sack. Ex-convict John King’ori is hoping the project, run by Italian NGO COOPI, will help him go straight after eight years behind bars for a violent robbery. King’ori chairs the Juja Road Self-Help Group, whose 76 members, also mostly former prisoners, are among the 1,000 households in Mathare and Huruma hoping their sacks will provide a sustainable source of vegetables such as kale, spinach, capsicum and onions. “We can plant over 40 seedlings in each sack; each household is responsible for watering and maintaining their sack. We hope the vegetables will be ready for consumption in a few weeks’ time,” said King’ori at a demonstration plot. COOPI fenced the plot, improved water storage and provided the top soil, sand, manure and seedlings. “The aim of the urban farming project is to empower the people to have better food purchasing power,” its manager, Claudio Torres, told IRIN.

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88150

IRIN – Thousands of flood-affected households still require assistance as ongoing rains in parts of Kenya continue to cause population displacement and destroy property and crops, according to humanitarian sources.

“Countrywide, 8,270hh [households or 40,165 persons], have been displaced and 40 people killed by floods. Livelihoods have been greatly interrupted and thousands are in dire need of relief aid,” according to a recent update by the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS).

The National Disaster Operations Centre (NDOC) estimates that up to 58,000 people had been affected by the flooding in the October-December 2009 short rains, stated a 22 December 2009 to 22 January Kenya Humanitarian Update by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87863

IRIN – Fridah Awour Agolla has sold vegetables in Nairobi’s Mathare slum for 20 years. In better times, her stock sold out every day. But lately market forces have begun to bite even harder for the millions in Kenya who live in such squalid, neglected settlements.

“My customers are buying less and less; now I find that goods like vegetables do not sell out, they go into the next day. People’s ability to buy these goods has really dropped,” Agolla, a mother of five, told IRIN.

Agolla managed to put her children through primary school but never earned enough to pay for secondary education.

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87780

Kenya has launched an ambitious strategy to fight HIV/AIDS that aims to reduce new infections by at least 50 percent over the next four years and focus more on most at-risk populations (MARPs).

 The third Kenya National AIDS Strategic Plan, which runs from 2009/2010 till 2012/2013 and was launched in the capital, Nairobi, on 12 January, also aims to reduce AIDS-related mortality by 25 percent.

 “We cannot achieve our target unless we close new taps of HIV infections – this involves putting most at-risk populations at the centre of our HIV programmes and prevention strategies,” said Alloys Orago, director of the National AIDS Control Council.

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87721

IPS – In early November, a group of explorers set out to map a blank space in Africa’s map. Twelve youths armed with global positioning system (GPS) devices made the rounds of the Nairobi slum of Kibera.

The teens are working with an organisation called OpenStreetMap to create a public map of their neighbourhood, seven kilometrs southwest of the city centre. It is the second-largest informal settlement in Africa, after South Africa’s Soweto township.

Read more – http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49883

IPS – Kenya’s Parliament finally passed the Proceeds of Crime and Anti-Money Laundering Bill in December. But while the passing of the bill is viewed as a highlight of the Tenth Parliament, many fear it may just be a gimmick by the government to appease international partners.

George Kegoro, the executive director of International Commission of Jurists – Kenya Chapter, says while the legislation is good, he doubts there is political will to completely stamp out money laundering in Kenya.

Read more – http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=49841

IPS – The consequences of the Doha Round of trade talks for larger developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa could include job losses and deindustrialisation if a new study forecasting how Kenya is set to be affected is anything to go by.

Read more – http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=49311

AfDB – The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group approved on Tuesday, 3 November 2009 in Tunis, a loan of USD 123 million (Units of Account 77.92 million) to finance  the Small Towns and Rural Water Supply and Sanitation project in Kenya.

The project addresses the water supply and sanitation problems in a number of small towns and the provision of water storage in Yatta area.

Read more – http://www.afdb.org/en/news-events/article/kenya-usd-123-m-for-water-and-sanitation-project-in-rural-areas-5265/