Catholics and other mainstream churches worldwide celebrated Ash Wednesday on March 5, 2025 to mark the beginning of 40 days of fasting, prayer, repentance, and alms giving, concluding on Easter Sunday. This period, commonly known as Lent, is for introspection, individually and collectively, for missteps that blind us from being sensitive to the needs of others and from living a life that marks the identity of living Christian values.

The ashes symbolise human mortality and the need for God’s mercy as given in Genesis 3:19: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” When things are going well, we tend to forget that we are only mortal beings. This period of Lent, therefore, reminds us of our temporality in this world. 

The Lenten season also reminds us of some fundamental basics of the Christian faith. We learn from the scripture that we fall from grace through wealth, honour and pride.

This teaching is well laid out in the temptation of Jesus according to the Gospels of Matthew 4:1-11 and Luke 4: 1-13. The three reminders that Jesus gives are straightforward: A person does not live on bread alone … Do not put the Lord your God to test … and worship the Lord your God and serve him only. 

Let us draw some lessons from the teaching, given that we are a faith-practising country. Firstly, having wealth is fine. However, accumulating wealth at the expense of other human beings is evil. The wealth generated from the misappropriation of public funds is enough to feed every single Kenyan and provide free basic medical care and universal education. Our roads would be better. Our cities and towns would be in better condition. Businesses would be booming. Wealth distribution among citizens would be fair. On the contrary, we are a country with significant inequality in almost every social sector. We put our faith to great shame.

Secondly, in the temptation of Jesus, we are warned to worship only God. However, because of our deep-seated greed, we worship people with large sums of money. We sell our faith, throw out Jesus to the gutters if only to receive guests with money, and destroy nature through logging, among other social evils, because we want money. With money, we can be worshipped at every turn. We turn ourselves into gods. 

Spiritually speaking, it is a shame in some circumstances that we endear ourselves to people with money and forget human dignity when and where we have the capacity to generate resources by ourselves. Specifically, I am talking about the billions of taxpayer shillings we watch being siphoned off, leaving us destitute. We go begging before the very people who have stolen from the public.

We justify that without money, prayers alone will not save us. Indeed! But we shouldn’t forget that we will be ten-fold richer if we stop worshipping wealth. Wealth is not an end. When we helplessly watch public funds being squandered, we should be embarrassed to seek help from politicians or wealthy people. No doubt, we are and will always need money from others. However, by the Lenten spirit, we cannot allow conditions that make us less human to flourish. The result is creating moneybag gods to whom we shall remain indebted no matter how wicked they become.

Let me profit from this Lenten season to argue a cause for action. Fundraising for religious purposes, including the construction of worship places, should pause for one year before the election date 2027. Why? 

Any properly constituted and prayerful religious institution would know in conscience that capitalising on campaign euphoria is an apparent good. You get support from political candidates desperate to attract votes. While many churches rely on donations and tithes to support their activities, Kenya’s political campaigns are, by and large, nothing but daylight bribery.

The number of daily handouts given to voters and the exponential number of harambees that are organised during election time sends a very wrong signal on the morality of accepting this kind of support. We do not live on bread alone. Do we? 

Dr Elias Mokua is the executive director of Loyola Centre for Media and Communication /The Standard

The road stretched endlessly, dust curling in the air, and the sun hanging heavy, unrelenting, pressing down on the parched earth. I was in northern Uganda, and I stopped in a small village. Beneath the shade of a lone mango tree, women gathered, their faces, young and old, etched and cracked like the ground they were sitting on. They offered what little they had—mangoes, plucked from dry branches, bruised from the fall but still sweet. Those with less shared more. They always do.

We sat together, and they spoke—not of politics, but of life, of the quiet battles waged every day. A mother who had lost a child while giving birth because the nearest clinic was too far. A woman community leader who watched the land dry up, year after year, knowing hunger would follow. A young girl who dreamed of school but knew marriage would come first. A grandmother who had seen too many of her daughters die from complications and some from HIV that should never have been fatal. Their fears were not abstract; they were immediate, urgent. And now, even the little support they had was slipping away.

This year, as we mark International Women’s Day under the theme, “For ALL Women and Girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment,” we must recognize that these women are not just numbers on a spreadsheet. They are the foundation of their families, their communities, and the future we all share. Investing in them is not optional—it is essential. 

The recent decision to terminate UNFPA’s US-funded grants is not just a policy change—it is a lifeline severed. Over the last four years, these investments prevented more than 17,000 maternal deaths, 9 million unintended pregnancies, and nearly 3 million unsafe abortions. In crisis settings, UNFPA reached over 13 million women and young people with sexual and reproductive health services.

Without continued support, women in crisis zones will be forced to give birth without medicines, midwives, or equipment, putting their lives and their babies at risk. Survivors of sexual violence will lose access to counseling and medical care. Health clinics that serve displaced populations will close. The losses are not just numbers. They are names. They are faces. They are futures.

The Right to Live

For the women I met in Uganda, control over their bodies was not guaranteed. In many parts of East and Southern Africa, only 28 per cent of women have full decision-making power over their reproductive health. Too many girls are forced into early marriages, denied education, and left without access to the contraception they need to plan their futures.

In South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, up to 70 per cent of women in conflict zones experience sexual violence. In some communities in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, female genital mutilation is still considered a rite of passage, despite the well-documented harm it causes.

Funding cuts jeopardize the futures of millions of women and girls who depend on UNFPA-supported services. This is not about politics—it is about human lives, dignity, and the right to healthcare.

Beyond this moment, this year is a milestone, marking the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. This landmark agreement is the most progressive and widely endorsed blueprint for advancing women’s and girls’ rights, transforming the global agenda in terms of legal protections, access to services, youth engagement, and dismantling outdated stereotypes and social norms. Yet, as we commemorate this day, we must confront the fact that millions of women and girls are still waiting for the promises of Beijing to be fully realized. And today their futures may swing back to the edge of uncertainty.

More than ever, we need to accelerate progress by ensuring that every woman and girl can access the healthcare, education, and opportunities she deserves. We need to protect the progress we have made and ensure that no woman or girl is left behind. This is not charity; it is justice.

As UNFPA continues to work tirelessly with governments, Member States, and humanitarian partners, we must ensure that funding and political will align to meet these needs.

The women I sat with in Uganda, and millions of others across the region, deserve more than promises or continued marginalization—they deserve action. I think back to that moment under the mango tree. The women who gathered, who shared their stories, who gave what little they had—because they understood something the world still struggles to grasp: those with less share more, not because they have to, but because they know what it means to go without. This is the future we must fight for—a world where women and girls do not have to rely on the kindness of scarcity, but instead, thrive in abundance, with rights, equality, and empowerment.  By Lydia Zigomo, Regional Director, UNFPA East and Southern Africa

Rwanda’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Kigali condemned Berlin for what it termed as the “politicization of development cooperation.”

The Rwandan government has strongly criticized Germany and Canada over their recent positions regarding the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), accusing them of bias and disregard for Rwanda’s security concerns.

In a statement issued by Rwanda’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Kigali condemned Berlin for what it termed as the “politicization of development cooperation.”

Rwanda expressed disappointment that Germany’s caretaker administration was undermining the African-led peace efforts by failing to hold the DRC accountable for its repeated violations, which Kigali argues have only emboldened Kinshasa’s aggressive stance and prolonged the conflict.

“Germany contradicts its own claims of supporting the African-led process to resolve the conflict in eastern DRC by letting the DRC off the hook for numerous violations, which only reinforces its belligerent posture and needlessly prolongs the conflict,” the statement read.

Kigali also accused Germany of ignoring the threat posed by the DRC-backed FDLR, a militia group composed of elements responsible for the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

President Paul Kagame’s administration asserted that Germany, given its “historical responsibility” in the region’s instability, should not resort to “one-sided, coercive measures” that fail to address the root causes of the crisis.

Rwanda also took issue with Canada, summoning its High Commissioner following Ottawa’s statement that placed blame on Kigali for the violence in eastern DRC.

It rejected the accusations, stating that Canada was wrongfully attributing atrocities in the region to Rwanda while ignoring the crimes committed by the DRC army (FARDC) and allied militias.

“Canada is voluntarily accusing Rwanda of atrocities committed in eastern DRC, while those crimes are committed in broad daylight by the FARDC and DRC government militias,” the ministry stated. 

Rwanda further accused Canada of dismissing its legitimate security concerns, particularly regarding the persecution of Congolese Tutsi communities in North and South Kivu and Ituri by the FDLR and other DRC-aligned forces.

Despite the criticisms, Rwanda maintained that it would not waver in its commitment to protecting its national security while remaining engaged in regional peace efforts.

The diplomatic tensions between Rwanda and its international partners have escalated in recent weeks following a resurgence in fighting in eastern DRC, where clashes between the Congolese army and the M23 rebels continue to displace thousands.

Rwanda has repeatedly accused the DRC government of supporting the FDLR, while Kinshasa alleges that Kigali backs the M23 rebels—claims that Rwanda denies. By BRUHAN MAKONG, Capital News