Insects, for a long time have been a delicacy not only in Kenya but in most African Countries. In Kenya for example, white ants, grasshoppers, caterpillars, etc are delicacies for various communities particularly in the western parts of Kenya. But now it is here with us and scientists are drumming up support and arguing that insects could provide the last solution to food insecurity around the world because insects multiplies and grows faster and contains a lot of nutrition particularly protein.

Last year for example, I visited Netherlands to study in Wageningen UR Centre and in one of the cultural festivals in Utrecht, there was a stall that was promoting the use of fried grasshoppers to supplement local diet as seen in the photo I took above.

Even though you could see some disgusting faces among the crowd in the festival, it is undeniable that those who had a taste liked it. Perhaps that could be explained from the comments from one of the scientists in this study,

“In the West we have a cultural bias, and think that because insects come from developing countries, they cannot be good,” said scientist Arnold van Huis from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, one of the authors of the FAO report. This report is here: http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3253e/i3253e13.pdf . See also related stories and pictures here: http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112844935/un-suggests-insects-as-food-051313/

I believe it will take sometime before people adjust to adopt to having insects in their daily diets…I can also imagine having cockroaches, spiders, mosquitoes, etc in my menu if only for reasons of eradicating them from Africa but I guess, lets give it a try! Should hotels begin making such dishes? I want to hear from you… Have a wonderful lunch!

Kenyan Members of Parliament (MP) and their salaries have for a long time been a subject of public debate and interest. Since the creation of Parliamentary Service Commission in late 90s, Kenyan MPs have been topping up their salaries at will and until now are the highly paid MPs in the world. They take home around Kshs. 850,000 per month in a country that only about 5% earn more than Kshs. 30,000. This has been subject to numerous petitions by the public with many people dismayed by the fact that an employee (MP) can be allowed to dictate what he/she should earn. One of the petitions were filed by Kenyans for Justice and Development (KEJUDE) in December 2008 seeking orders to scrap the Parliamentary Service Commision (PSC) in a petition No. 769 of 2008, filed at the High Court in Nairobi here: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/youngprofessionals_ke/-iKwMfoM59U

The petition claimed among other things

"Since 2000, the MPs have used the rogue PSC to astronomically increase their salaries and allowances. They have also altered the provisions on how they qualify for some allowances. For example, they changed their transport allowance to a flat rate from the mileage based regime. This means that the MP for, say, Nairobi’s Starehe Constituency, which hosts Parliament Buildings, earns the same transport allowance as his or her counterpart from Mandera East Constituency," read part of the petition.

Kenya promulgated a new constitution in August 2010 which created Salaries and Renumeration Commission (SRC) to try and bridge the salary gap and decrease the wage bill. As part of their work, they have slashed the MPs salary from Kshs. 850,000 to Kshs. 550,000. Still on the higher side compared to thier peers in developing economies, MPs have threatened to disband the SRC even they do not heed to their demand for higher pay. These MPs were just voted and sworn in less than 2 months ago.

Jittery and opposed to such demands, Kenyans staged a protest yesterday 14th May 2013 calling on MPs to give service to the electorate and if they feel the salary is low, they should all quit. They used pigs as a symbol of greed from the MPs in a campaign dubbed "Occupy Parliament". They went to the gate of the National Assembly with the pigs, poured blood on the gate and the pigs began licking the blood to demostrate the action of the Kenyan MPs.

There was drama however as riot police moved in to disperse the protesters using teargas, water canons, and live bullets but by the time this happened, already the message was driven home.

Sports for Development is gaining a lot of momentum in Kenya and Africa in general. The idea of using sports not only for competition or physical fitness but as a tool for mobilisation and sensitization on various developmental issues cannot be ignored based on the huge liking for sports and the crowds sports pull together in every event.

It is the civil society organisations that introduced this model to Kenya and have lobbied the government to include Sports for Development in the new Kenya Sports Act 2013 that was signed in January 2013 by the then President Mwai Kibaki. One of those organisations that spearheaded the lobby is Seeds of Peace Africa International: www.sopa.or.ke who coordinates the Kenya Sports for Development Partnership (KSDP), a network of 25 community based sporting organisations in Kenya. KSDP works in the areas of peacebuilding and conflict transformation, education, health, livelihoods using sports.

But even with the new Sports Act in place, sports federations in Kenya still faces a lot of mismanagement challenges particularly linked to leadership. Three organisations, Centre for Multi-Party Democracy, Sports International and Strathmore University has come together to bring some sanity to the federations and last week I was invited and attended the launch of their program dubbed "Towards Accountable Management of Sports in Kenya". This program will include among others activities a series of capacity building workshops and trainings, on areas of governance, leadership, legal framework and management for sports federations and associations.

Kenya Sports for Development Partnership are working closely with this team of three organisations including Right To Play, NSA International, Street Football World to organize a National Sports Forum in July/August in Kenya that will take the form of a seminar/Conference with presentations on various themes for sports professionals, practitioners and consumers. Among the thematic areas are: Value-based Sports, Sports Act 2013, Governance and Leadership in Sports, Sports for Business and Economic Empowerment, Sports as a Tool for Development among others. Follow this blog for more information of this idea...