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Beyond ‘good laws and best practices’: Politics of Land acquisition and livelihood restoration

enekesa — Tue, 17 Dec 2019 12:59:28 +0000

Prof. Asmita Kabra took her audience through the history of the laws of land acquisition and resettlement in India through a Public Lecture on Friday December 13, 2019.

The Professor of Human Ecology from Ambedkar University highlighted that Land acquisition in India was governed till 2013 mainly by the colonial-era Land Acquisition Act (LAA) of 1894. Additionally, more than 100 other land acquisition laws were enacted, mostly in the 1950s, by the central government, state governments and various Public Sector Undertakings. All these laws invoked the state’s power of ‘eminent domain’ (Sampat, 2013), which allowed the state to compulsorily acquire property belonging to private persons for a public purpose upon payment of just compensation.

Severe land conflicts arose in India since the mid-1980s over land acquisition for public sector infrastructure projects. These conflicts escalated in the late 1990s when private sector acquisition accelerated - India’s new ‘land wars’.

Prof. Asmita Kabra engages an audience during Q &A during her Public Lecture on Friday
December 13, 2019

Issues such as vagueness about what constitutes ‘public purpose’; widespread misuse of the ‘urgency’ clause for land acquisition, extremely narrow definition of ‘project-affected families’ – most of the affected people were left out of the ambit of any safety nets , serious undervaluation of acquired land and other immovable assets; compensation was inadequate to buy new land elsewhere , Inordinate delays in payment of compensation; non-transparent procedures, little or no public consultation/ participation; poor grievance redress mechanisms were characteristic of the Land Acquisition Act of 1894.

In 2013, the LARR was reviewed and included an improvement in terms of intent as well as procedures , it specified a long list of types of activities that constitute ‘public purpose’; restricted ‘urgency’ clause only to projects involving national defense, widened the definition of project-affected persons to include those who lose their primary livelihoods, raised compensation price for acquired land (four times the value of the average of registered sale deeds in rural areas, and two times in urban areas) , made it compulsory to provide resettlement and rehabilitation measures (housing units, infrastructure, alternative employment or annuity), specified clear timelines for payment of compensation; provided for interest payment in case of delay, provided for conducting Social Impact Assessment (SIA) to determine a project’s impact on people’s livelihoods, emphasized on transparency at all stages of land acquisition, and free, prior and informed consent of the affected people, specified grievance redress mechanisms at different levels (project, state and national); lays down penalties for non-compliance.

Prof. Asmita concluded by emphasizing the lessons learnt from LARR: evidence-backed lawmaking and reforms are required , all available evidence shows that ‘success stories’ of resettlement are few and far between, while learning from ‘best practices’ from around the world, local context will need to be kept central, National safeguard laws should be legally actionable, law-making is inherently political.

Land acquisition, land resettlement, Discourse at UoN, Public Lecture

Kenya's Position in Space Science Era

enekesa — Wed, 27 Nov 2019 07:08:27 +0000

Technologies can be applied in satellite communication where data is transmitted through internet connectivity; this enables us to communicate globally. Currently there are many satellites taking images which are being used to monitor information from the surface of the earth. Hon. Wilber Ottichllo, Governor Vihiga County, and an alumnus �� discussed this during a public lecture on Space Science at the ��, College of Biological and Physical Sciences.

Governor Vihiga County, Hon. Wilber Otichillo shares a selfie moment with students at CBPS
after Public Lecture on Monday Nov 25, 2019

Giving examples of satellites, Hon Ottichilo noted the importance of space science technology especially in maritime and aviation industry. An application of space science observation is being able to have precise information on weather.

The Governor's lecture titled Kenya Position in the Space Era: Examining the Status on the Developments in Space Science and its Utilization for Accelerated Economic Development looked at the case of Vihiga County.

An example of a satellite mentioned was Landsat whose importance is collection of information about how the earth changes every day and through the satellites, data is available to analyse these changes on a daily basis. Other satellites mentioned include: meteosat - 4,7,8,10 and NOAA Satellites (GEOS 16,17 Suomi NPP, NOAA-20)

Among applications of space science technology is precision agriculture, where the county of Vihiga borrows in its application of technology. In precision agriculture, agriculture is monitored from satellites as well as drones. Monitoring of where you want to farm, the type of soil, what needs to be added to the soil as well as the inputs required takes place.

Other applications include: urban transport, route mapping, space tourism, natural resource management and national security.

Of these, urban transport is key as 70% of the world population will be living in urban centres in 2050, and analysis of transport information can be done through satellites.

The public lecture gave an opportunity to examine the status on the developments in space science and its utilization in Vihiga County.

In as much as satellites offer diverse advantages on reliability, global coverage, high speed access and cost effectiveness, it has its limitations. According to Hon. Ottichilo, manufacturing requires time and since the satellites have a given life-span, once they go to space, they cannot be taken back for repair. Additionally, the skills needed in space science need to be enhanced. He asserted that the country needs to input resources into Kenya Space Agency so that the agency has the best technical skills in space science.

In conclusion Hon. Ottichilo emphasized that space technology is a technology that is moving the world and any country not embracing this technology will find itself dependent on other countries for information. He encouraged the youth to embrace space science technology as it as a technology that offers a lot of opportunity in terms of employment and research.

Also present was Director Kenya Space Agency, Dr. John Njoroge Kimani.

Space Science, Public Lecture, Discourse at UoN

From Megaphones to Headphones: Prof. Jim Macnamara

enekesa — Wed, 13 Nov 2019 12:29:15 +0000

Communication expert, Prof. Jim Macnamara shared insights on new technologies for communication with PR Practitioners, staff and students at the University on Tuesday November 12, 2019.

Prof. Jim Macnamara, Sydney University of Technology speaking at UoN on Tue Nov 12, 2019

Prof, Macnamara started by demystifying the practices that have long worked for the communication managers in the market place. He underscored, “Communication is two-way; communication is creation of a community and not transmission of information. Communicators do not only have to be megaphones for their organizations, amplifying the message of the company to the clients, but that they should also be the headphones, listening to what the stakeholders are saying to the company.”

The Lecturer at Sydney University of Technology took the audience through research output that shows 80-95% of communicative resources are developed to disseminating messages whereas only 5-15% of communicative resources are focused on listening to stakeholders.

He emphasized that when listening is done, it is primarily instrumental.

When the stakeholders feel the company is not listening to them, there is collapse of trust, in extreme cases, people die, decline in stakeholder satisfaction and loyalty, disengagement, opposition and dissent and rise of alternatives.

Prof. Macnamara gave the benefits of listening as: company will get insights to inform adaptive and emergent strategy, understanding empathy or design thinking, the organization will learn, true engagement, gain trust, healthy relationship, feedback on policies, products, services etc.

He urged communicators to take up leadership and advise the public and the organization management that communication is a two-way process. He underscored the importance of advising/ counseling management using evidence. This evidence should be gathered using all the technological tools available. Prof. Macnamara highlighted tools such as social and market research, stakeholder engagement, social media monitoring and analysis, text analysis of open end comments, voice to text, data analytics, behavioural insights and natural language processing.

He concluded by challenging the communicators to look beyond stakeholders and publics as ‘targets’ and ‘audience’.

Kentice Tikolo, FPRSK Managing Director, Impact Africa moderated the panel discussion where UoN’s School of Journalism lecturer, Anne Gichuhi, Dean School of Information Rongo University, Dr. John Oluoch, and CIPR Member Chris, took turns to react to the lecture by Prof. Jim Macnamara. Artificial Intelligence, ethics and transparency in today’s communication were highlighted and discussed at length.

Public Lecture, Discourse, Jim Macnamara, UoN

US Policy in Africa remains unchanged, says Policy Expert

enekesa — Tue, 05 Nov 2019 14:08:15 +0000

“US policy in Sub -Saharan Africa has not changed but there are challenges like corruption and bad governance that need to be addressed by African states. Key areas of cooperation remain governance, health, trade and security.”

This is one of the highlights that Policy Expert Judd Devermont underscored during his public lecture at the �� on Friday November 1, 2019.

The director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) emphasized that the US should increase its investments in Africa without worrying about Chinese and Russian exploits. “The US should provide financially sound alternatives to state-led initiatives from countries like China and Russia.” He remarked. “The US should help African countries to sustainably develop as opposed to being trapped in opaque debts.”

He noted that Unlike Chinese, the US policy does not entertain government to government projects. However, the government may encourage American companies/ business enterprises to invest in Africa. Trade between US and Africa is still insignificant accounting for a meager 2%. There are a lot of opportunities for growth that could be exploited.

He agreed with his audience that the US politics is currently polarised but the policy making and objectives for Africa are still consistent. The trade wars between China and US are going to create negative impact on Africa.

Evidently there is an increasing scramble for Africa. As Wade Shopard states in his article in the Forbes, “Africa has become the fastest urbanizing region of the world, with rural migrants moving into cities a clip that has even surpassed that of China and India, as the continent becomes one of the final frontiers of the forth industrial revolution.” This rapid transformation has presented big opportunities for countries willing to invest in Africa and no country has seized the opportunity like China. According to the China Investment Global Tracker Chinese investments in the sub-Saharan Africa total $299 billion from 2005 to 2018. And 39 of 54 African nations have now signed on to Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative – a trillion-dollar plan to link infrastructure and trade via a vast new network of roads, rail lines, ports, and pipelines across Eurasia, the Middle East, and Africa.

He admitted that there are many good things and bad things emanating from China-Africa Relations, but is up to Africa to evaluate their policy priorities.

Judd Devermont was speaking in a public lecture organized by the US embassy in Kenya and department of Political science at the ��. He is currently a Professor at George Washington University.

Discourse, Political Science, Public Lecture

������ - Public Lecture

Beyond ‘good laws and best practices’: Politics of Land acquisition and livelihood restoration

Kenya's Position in Space Science Era

From Megaphones to Headphones: Prof. Jim Macnamara

US Policy in Africa remains unchanged, says Policy Expert

�� - Public Lecture