Photo Courtesy The Standard

To Wiper Party leader Kalonzo Musyoka, it is important that people who have hurt him acknowledge doing so.

This search for an admission made the former vice president call a press conference at his party’s offices in Karen on Tuesday and produce a sheaf of papers laying out a power-sharing pact with ODM leader Raila Odinga, his partner in the defunct National Super Alliance. 

Kalonzo, flanked by party members, asserted his right to Raila's support in his State House bid.

In 2017, said Kalonzo, he had agreed to support Raila on the condition that he would reciprocate in 2022, whether their coalition clinched power.

The 2022 election is here and Kalonzo is demanding his pound of flesh. To ask Raila to drop his own bid in favour of Kalonzo's, especially at a time when Raila has received President Uhuru Kenyatta's backing and can almost see himself in State House, is to demand the impossible.

Kalonzo placed a condition on his talks with Azimio la Umoja, the coalition party bringing together Raila’s ODM and President Kenyatta’s Jubilee. 

Raila is a firm favourite to be Azimio’s presidential candidate, but Kalonzo, who is working on having his One Kenya Alliance formally join Azimio, said if that coalition takes shape, his candidature should take precedence over Raila’s. There is a contract to which Raila agreed to the arrangement, he said.

"Raila should just endorse me," Kalonzo said in interviews with KTN News and NTV later in the day. "He has two options, adhere to the agreement or defy it."

But his proclamation is not really a threat to Raila. He said regardless of what the former Prime Minister decided, he would still work with him.

That speech was Kalonzo’s parody of himself.

In one sentence he issued an ultimatum that Raila must drop his bid and support him, in the next he said it did not mean they won't work together. 

One instant he said OKA was in the Azimio movement, a moment later he said the discussions with Azimio had to be based on the 2017 document.

Kalonzo has lamented often that he was called names such as ‘indecisive’ but with the new revelations is attempting to recast himself as a victim of politics.

The upshot of his statement was that Raila had made a promise he never intended to keep and that he was right that the ODM leader could not be trusted.

“I will sleep very well tonight because I have told Kenyans what they need to know," he said.

Gnawing at the back of Kalonzo’s mind is a statement he made last year where he said he would be the ‘stupidest man’ if he supported Raila for a third time.

In November 2021, Kalonzo's Wiper Party endorsed him to run for office. However, there have been no real signs that he intends to run. Rather, the lean has been towards forming a coalition and support one of their own.

The former VP is also one of the front runners in OKA. Analysts say Kalonzo's demeanour has been that of a man denying reality – that he was on his way back to supporting Raila’s ticket.

When the press conference ended he told some flustered journalists: “You have a lot to unpack.”

And there was a lot to unpack.

The ramifications of Kalonzo's statement began the same day when Narc Kenya, one of the affiliate parties in OKA, said they needed more time to study the coalition agreement before committing to it.

But does Kalonzo’s pushing forward with his affairs with Raila complicate the equation for OKA?

Yesterday, OKA postponed the signing of the coalition agreement to early next week, citing legal issues. 

But whether he has boxed himself or Raila into a corner, is yet to be seen.

The governors from Kalonzo’s base in Eastern Kenya believe he is taking the region in circles.

Makueni Governor Kivutha Kibwana said the agreement could not have been implemented since Raila did not win the election.

"Hence the two most critical terms of the agreement were frustrated by turn of events,” he said.

Kibwana, as well as Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua and Kitui's Charity Ngilu are aligned with Raila and have been swaying Kalonzo in the same direction. 

Tom Mboya, a political analyst said it was difficult to bind someone to an MoU and could not see how Kalonzo would have Raila honour it. Source: By Allan Mungai, The Standard

Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, at the Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development, in Kigali, Rwanda, today:

I am pleased to be with you today for the opening of the Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development.

We are meeting at a crucial time when our ability to achieve the goals we set for ourselves in the 2030 Agenda [for Sustainable Development] and [the African Union’s] Agenda 2063 hangs in the balance.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought havoc to our societies and economies.  Hunger and poverty are increasing for the first time in a generation.  One in two students in Africa suffered learning losses during the pandemic.

Over 700 million people across the continent still have no access to the internet.  Slow and fragile progress towards gender equality risks going into reverse.  The climate crisis, biodiversity loss and pollution are destroying lives and livelihoods at an unprecedented rate.

Momentum towards an inclusive and sustainable recovery is thwarted by inequalities in access to COVID-19 vaccines and access to finance.  Ongoing conflicts and insecurity are also serious obstacles.  And now the conflict in Ukraine is further destabilizing a global economy still reeling from the pandemic.

The 2030 Agenda and Agenda 2063 — together with the Secretary-General’s report on Our Common Agenda — remain our best blueprints to successfully confront the challenges we face.  This eighth session of the Africa Forum on Sustainable Development presents an important opportunity to focus our energy on implementation and chart an ambitious path forward.

There is solid ground to build on.  The fact that we can again meet in Kigali today is testament to Africa and Rwanda’s resilience and the leadership of his Excellency President [Paul Kagame of Rwanda] and other leaders across the continent.  I want to highlight five priorities to help inform your deliberations.

First, we must end the acute phase of the pandemic and build resilience against the next outbreak.  Through the COVAX Facility, the African Union is on its way to securing over half a billion vaccine doses.  But, despite these tremendous efforts, high-income countries have administered 13 times more doses per person than low-income countries.  Vaccinating 70 per cent of the world by July this year remains our primary objective.

We must also build stronger and more resilient health systems by investing in primary health care and health surveillance systems, as well as greater production of vaccines, diagnostics and treatments.  The actions taken by the African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team and national agencies are important steps in this regard.

In all of this, we will build on the global legacy of Paul Farmer.  His sudden death last month leaves a void in the global health community and I want to take this opportunity to honour his memory.  I also know this is indeed a personal loss to President Kagame and the people of Rwanda due to his special bond with and phenomenal public health contribution to the country.

Second, we must scale up and speed up investments in the protection of people and ecosystems at the front lines of the climate crisis.  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on adaptation released just days ago is a damning indictment of failed climate leadership.

Extreme weather is destroying crop yields, eroding food security and overwhelming our infrastructure.  Developed countries must urgently deliver on the commitment they made at the [twenty-sixth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26)] in Glasgow to double adaptation finance to at least $40 billion per year by 2025.  Regional and multilateral development banks must scale up their renewable energy and resilient infrastructure portfolios and mobilize more private finance.

At the United Nations Environmental Assembly in Nairobi, I witnessed the resolve of Member States and other stakeholders to tackle environmental issues and other challenges to global governance, by embracing a more inclusive multilateralism, in line with the vision outlined in the Secretary-General’s report on Our Common Agenda.  I hope we can demonstrate similar resolve in support of the Egyptian presidency of the next climate conference — COP27, the African [Conference of the Parties].

Together with [the fifteenth session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (COP15)] in Abidjan, the United Nations Ocean Conference and the Stockholm+50 meeting, we will have many opportunities to build a resilient future.

Third, we must supercharge just transitions in energy, food systems and digital connectivity.  We need a just energy transition that allows Africa to access clean and affordable energy while protecting livelihoods.

The Just Energy Transition Partnership launched at COP26 to support South Africa set a valuable precedent for international collaboration.  We need sustainable and resilient food systems which guarantee access to healthy diets and nutrition for all, while restoring and protecting nature.

The United Nations Food Systems Summit in September 2021 and the creation of the Food Systems Hub in Rome are essential steps aimed at supporting countries in this critical transformation.

We need affordable connectivity and digital skills to create more job opportunities for young people.  The [launch of the] Internet Governance Forum in Addis Ababa later this year will also be an important milestone in this regard.

Fourth, we must recover the huge learning losses of the pandemic by advancing education and life‑long learning.  Education is the bedrock of all successful economies.  Today, however, it is under enormous strain.

Rwanda and many other African countries have made great strides in education outcomes.  But, despite important achievements, conventional education systems everywhere are struggling to equip learners with the knowledge, skills and values needed to thrive in our rapidly changing world.  In developing countries especially, the pandemic risks causing a generational catastrophe.

That is why the Secretary-General is convening the Summit on Transforming Education this September.  The Summit will seek to renew our collective commitment to education as a pre-eminent public good and mobilize the action, ambition, solutions and solidarity needed to transform education.  I count on African Governments and leaders to embrace the Summit as a critical opportunity to project forward the education systems envisaged under Agenda 2063.

Fifth, we need to accelerate gender equality and economic transformation.  Over 70 per cent of people across Africa — the majority of them women — continue to earn their livelihoods in the informal economy, which is an afterthought in economic strategies and metrics.  Robust and decent job creation must be matched by the achievement of universal social protection.

The Global Accelerator for Jobs and Social Protection launched in September 2021 is central to these efforts, aiming to create 400 million decent new jobs in the care, green and digital sectors, and expand social protection to half of the global population by 2030.

Achieving gender equality and [Sustainable Development Goal] 5 requires ambitious action from all of us.  Together, I hope we can implement the five transformative recommendations of the Secretary-General, namely:  repealing all gender-discriminatory laws; promoting gender parity in all spheres and at all levels of decision-making; facilitating women’s economic inclusion; ensuring greater inclusion of the voices of younger women; and following through on an emergency response plan to prevent and end violence against women and girls.

The fate of the Sustainable Development Goals will be decided in Africa.  To succeed, Africa must have the financial resources to invest in a better tomorrow.

We are far from where we need to be.  Debt to gross domestic product (GDP) ratios have risen to almost 70 per cent.  Today, 17 African countries are at high risk of debt distress, and four are already in debt distress.  The Secretary‑General has appealed for a serious reform of the international financial architecture, which shamelessly favours the rich and punishes the poor.

The Economic Commission for Africa’s (ECA) Liquidity and Sustainability Facility is an important partnership with the private sector to increase liquidity for sustainable investment in Africa.

We also need to ensure that finance is invested in the real economy.  Special drawing rights should be re-channelled to countries most in need and invested in universal social protection as well as the green, digital and health‑care economies.  The African Continental Free Trade Area can be a game‑changer for Africa’s sustainable development ambitions.

The goal of $100 billion a year in climate finance must be met starting this year, and quickly scaled up.  Crucially, countries in need must be able to access this money.  That is why we are pushing for urgent reforms of the access and eligibility systems.

Together with the African Union, the repositioned United Nations development system is mobilizing to deliver expertise, convening power and skillsets.

At last week’s meeting of the Regional Collaborative Platform, we agreed on an ambitious workplan and concrete deliverables.  We also committed to support further investments in better data and national data ecosystems as crucial tools to inform policy and programmes and measure progress towards the [Sustainable Development Goals].

The challenges ahead are significant.  But, together, we can — and we will — succeed in building a better future for all.  The United Nations will remain your steadfast partner at this pivotal moment. - United Nations