Scratch-card solar brings clean energy to Kenya's poor

By Isaiah Esipisu

Replacing tin-lamps with Solar Lantens

KITALE, Kenya (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – At Sibanga market, 10 km (6 miles) outside the town of Kitale in western Kenya, Timothy Nyongesa walks into the Mibawa Suppliers shop to collect a gadget that he hopes will brighten his children’s studies and his family’s health.

In exchange for an initial payment of 1,000 Kenyan shillings (about $12), Nyongesa walks out with a kit that will generate solar energy at his home. He jumps on his bicycle and snakes along a footpath to his village of Sinyerere, 6 km farther into the countryside.

Kenya looks to geothermal energy to boost power supply

The Menengai site

By Isaiah Esipisu

NAKURU, Kenya (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – About ten kilometres north of the Kenya’s Rift Valley town of Nakuru lies a massive shield volcano with one of the biggest calderas in the world. Standing at about 7,474 feet above sea level with a sheer cliff, locals describe it as an easy suicide zone. Perhaps, this is how the crater earned its name ‘Menengai’ – Maasai dialect for ‘Corpse’.

Now, with funding from the Climate Investment Funds channeled through the African Development Bank (AfDB), the government of Kenya is taking advantage of this volcanic opening to generate electricity using hot steam from the earth’s crust to run turbines.

Alarm growing as cassava blight spreads to West Africa

By Isaiah Esipisu

Infected Cassava tuber

NAIROBI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The future of cassava, one of the most climate-resilient crops in Africa, may be under threat because rising temperatures have led to a dramatic increase in the number of whiteflies, tiny insects that spread the deadly cassava brown steak virus.

Previously seen as a major problem, but one confined to eastern and central Africa, the virus is spreading, alarming scientists who say new outbreaks suggest the disease is heading west towards the world’s largest cassava producer – Nigeria.

So far, according to James Legg, a plant virologist at the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), new countries such as Angola, Gabon and Central African Republic have been hit by the virus. Legg has done extensive research on the disease and its causes in East Africa.

Solar power brings piped water to rural Western Kenya's doorstep

By Isaiah Esipisu

Solar panels at Lukova Primary School

KAKAMEGA, Kenya (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Residents of some rural communities in Western Kenya can now access clean piped water at their doorsteps, thanks to solar-powered engines that pump it from borehole wells.

Pamela Kuyuti reckons it has kept her family together.

“Before this tap with running water was connected to my homestead, I was actually contemplating to quit this marriage,” said Kuyuti, a resident of Mukhalanya village. “I was exhausted walking hours on a daily basis to fetch water for my family and for my mother-in-law.”

Kenyan MPs to champion rural women's influence on climate policy

Denittah Ghati – an MP for Migori County

By Isaiah Esipisu

NAIROBI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Women are due to get a bigger say in Kenya’s climate change policies after female parliamentarians representing its 47 counties joined a group that has been pushing for gender balance from the local up to the national level.

Kenya’s new constitution provides for one seat per county that can only be contested by women. After the March general elections, for the first time, all counties have a female representative in the National Assembly.

Last month these representatives all signed up to work with a non-governmental organisation called Kenya Climate Justice Women Champions (KCJWC), raising hopes that efforts to tackle climate change will become more sensitive to women’s concerns.

Can political changes bring new action on climate risks in Kenya?

 NAIROBI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Will political reform and a change of government in Kenya bring new political will to tackle climate change and associated disaster risks from changing weather?

Within weeks of Kenya’s new government being sworn in, flooding has claimed dozens of lives and displaced tens of thousands of people, putting climate-related disasters in the political spotlight.

On April 18, Deputy President William Ruto noted that recent floods had caused more than 60 deaths and forced 35,000 from their homes.

Among the most affected areas is the Tana Delta, where some 6,000 families have suffered heavy losses after the Tana River burst its banks and swamped thousands of acres of farmland, destroying crops. Some villagers drowned.