M.M.E.M. Rutten

Land Tenure Frontiers and Food Security among Maasai Pastoralists in Kenya

The number of undernourished people in Africa has increased by 46% since 1970, reaching 175 million in 1995 (IFPRI, 1995). Most of the food production gains in Africa during the last decades resulted from an extension of the agricultural frontier into drier regions (Platteau, 1988). However, at present this arid frontier can only be moved marginally, while it has already reached its sustainable limit in some countries. What can be done to cover the difference between food needs and production in Sub-saharan Africa aside from importing food? The IFPRI 2020 vision report mentions a whole range of actions including enhancing natural resource management by securing and reforming property rights (IFPRI, 1995:49).

The Kenyan general elections of 1997 : implementing a new model for international election observation in Africa

In 1992, Kenya held the first multi-party elections since the de facto single-party elections of 1969. Church leaders had started campaigning for the return of the multi-party system in the beginning of 1990. Politicians, NGOs and the Kenyan public at large followed their example. Even more important, by November 1991 the international donor community also openly pressed for political as well as economic reforms and threatened to withhold aid. The following month President Daniel arap Moi announced the withdrawal of section 2(A) of the Constitution, making Kenya a de jure multi-party state again. New political parties were launched. finally, on 29 December 1992 Kenya followed the footsteps of Zambia, which had, among the English-speaking African countries, heralded the transition from single to multi-party politics in October 1991 (see Andreassen et al. 1992).