Successive failed rain seasons in Kenya have led to a drought that experts say is the worst in the country since 1996.

And it is not just a problem for Kenya. Aid agencies estimate more than 23 million people will need food aid in the Horn of Africa region.

Kenyan Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai says it shows how ill-prepared much of Africa is to deal with the effects of climate change.

Herders who depend on cattle for their food and income are having to drive their livestock hundreds of kilometres to seek pasture and water - but find little relief.

“The grass was green when I got here, but it is finished now and a lot of our animals are dying,” Grewan Lesakut, from the pastoralist Samburu community in the Rift Valley, told Reuters Africa Journal.

“The way I see it, all our cows are going to die,” fellow herder John Lenyarui said. “I know some people who had 50 cows but have nothing now, some with 200 and now have only 40 and myself I had 500 and now I have 100.”

Kenya’s Meat Commission is doing what it can. It has offered to buy thousands of cattle from their owners to be slaughtered for meat. But the government facility has been stretched to the limit and thousands of have died outside the slaughterhouse.

“This is a very ugly scene, a very disturbing scene that the country is facing,” Livestock Minister Mohamed Kuti said.

Most nomadic groups hold on to their animals even in times of severe drought, seeing them as their most valuable investment.  In desperation, Turkana villagers, from northwest Kenya, are selling their goats well below market prices to the European Union’s humanitarian wing which then distributes the meat to the hungry.

Maathai, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, says the drought is evidence of the long term effect of climate change.

“This is an excellent time for Kenya maybe to realise, and for the rest of Africa to learn, what we are talking about when we say that climate change is going to hit Africa very seriously, and it’s partly because Africa is completely unprepared for what is coming with climate change,” she told Africa Journal.

“For more than three decades we have been saying it is important to protect our forests, to protect our rivers, to protect our lands so that we stop soil erosion and to protect our wetlands.

“Somehow, all of them have come and have converged during this last two, now going to three, years and everybody and everything that is living in this country is feeling it.”

(Pictures: Turkana men slaughter goats at a livestock de-stocking centre in the Loyoro village of Turkana district in northwestern Kenya. Reuters/Thomas Mukoya. Kenya’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maathai delivers a speech in Japan. Reuters/Kim Kyung Hoon.)

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi agreed to sit down with Reuters on Wednesday only hours before leaving for the G8 summit in Italy. He told us he planned to remind the rich leaders he met there that the economic slowdown and global warming are having a disproportionate effect on Africa. And that the world’s poorest continent did nothing to cause them.

The former rebel represented Africa at this year’s G20 summit of rich nations and is arguing the case on behalf of the continent again today and tomorrow. Continental spokesman seems a roll Meles — who has a passionate interest in economics — is comfortable with. But he told us it was only related to his job as Ethiopian Prime Minister and that he has no desire to take on a pan-African job if and when he retires as leader — something he has recently said he has plans to do.

“The key message for us is to ask the G8 to live up to their commitments,” Meles said, looking relaxed in his Addis Ababa office as he prepared to fly off to Rome. “The promise (from the G20 summit) was that something like $50 billion dollars would be made available to poorer countries. Slightly more than $20 billion of that is on hand. The rest needs to be fulfilled.”

The Ethiopian leader also said Africa’s myriad problems were being compounded by global
warming and it was essential that the continent be compensated by the rich world at
environment talks due for Denmark in December.

“Many institutions have tried to quantify (the amount of compensation) and they have come up with different figures,” Meles said. “The sort of median figure would be in the range of $40 billion a year.”

But some analysts think that figure is very ambitious, especially bearing in mind that only $20 billion of the $50 billion promised at G20 has so far made it into the hands of those to whom it’s been promised.

Meles certainly sounded like he was heading off to the G8 with a full plate of issues and ideas for the world’s richest nations.

The problem is that fewer big initiatives are expected to be agreed in Rome as there were at the G20.

So what’s the best he, and Africa, can really hope for?

Is the developed world to blame for the economic difficulties the world’s poorest are facing? If so, what should it do? And should Africa be compensated for climate change?

A "gold-rush-like" buzz has spread across Germany in the last week over tentative plans to invest the staggering sum of 400 billion euros to harvest solar power in the Sahara for energy users across Europe and northern Africa. Even though European and Mediterranean Union leaders have been exploring and studying for several years the idea of using concentrated solar power (CSP), the Desertec proposition suddenly captivated the public's attention a week ago when German reinsurer Munich Re announced it had invited blue chip German companies such as Deutsche Bank, Siemens and several major utilities to a July 13 meeting on the project. The 20 companies aim to sign a memorandum of understanding to found the Desertec Industrial Initiative that could be supplying 15 percent of Europe's electricity in the decades ahead.

Germany's deputy foreign minister, Guenter Gloser, has been the government's point man for the project. I had the chance to talk to him about it.

Question: How did this project to turn the sun in the Sahara into electricity for Europe and north African countries get started?
Guenter Gloser: About 15 months ago Germany and France proposed including the solar plan into the list of projects for the Union for the Mediterranean. There were institutions that had already done research and we thought: 'Why don't we use this sun belt where there is such an abundance of sunshine as a source of renewable energy?' Together Germany, France and Egypt put forth this solar plan as one of the six projects for the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and underscored the fact that it could benefit both sides. It was not an idea where just countries north of the Mediterranean will benefit but rather those countries south of it as well as across the EU would also benefit.

Question: What is the current status of the project?
Gloser: We agreed to move forward with the project and want to go forward step-by-step towards its implementation. But obviously neither the EU nor the Arab League will be the principal players but rather private investors. Our task for this project is to create the political framework -- for example with setting up of the feed-in tariffs, ensuring the infrastructure is built and ensuring that the renewable energy can be transported to Europe. The political framework can also make it possible to expedite the approvals process. But what is also very important is that the energy produced is also available for countries in the region. For example, Morocco can take advantage of its solar and wind conditions on the Atlantic coast to build solar power plants or wind energy parks to provide energy for its domestic market and to sell energy abroad as well. Even countries such as Algeria, which has fossil fuel reserves, could also use the sun belt for solar thermal power for some of their energy needs -- and prolong their fossil fuel reserves.

Question: Is there not risk involved in such large-scale investment in a region with a potential for political instability?
Gloser: It's a cooperation that will contribute towards diversifying energy sources, geographically and in terms of energy sources. It's a truly fascinating project because it's a win-win for everyone. And the third winner will be the people and institutions that finance this project. Neither the EU nor the countries in the south are capable of financing this on their own. So the question is: can third-parties bringing financing be involved. Energy security is an important issue everywhere. There are energy sources we have today that at times have been somewhat at risk. There's no contradiction in saying that it's important to diversify a country's energy source as well as diversifying the types of energy it receives. It's not that there is no risk whatsoever but it's important to keep in mind that there are also some risk factors for other sources of energy that we are now importing.

Question: What impact do you think a project like this could have in the Mediterranean Union?
Gloser: I think the partnership approach that we have taken could well have a positive influence of stability for the countries taking part as well as the neighbouring nations. The EU has been enlarged and come closer together in the past decades but there hasn't been as much of that among Arab countries. Perhaps it would be possible through certain projects, such as this solar energy project or water projects or transportation routes, to increase the cooperation among those countries.

Question: There have been fears expressed that Europe would be exploiting natural resources in Africa, raising fears of a new sort of 'colonisation'. What would you say to those fears?
Gloser: It is not in any way an issue of the north dominating the south. It is not only the north that is interested in acquiring renewable energy but rather other users are interested. And if that mutual need for energy leads to a project that satisfies all sides then that is in my view a good route to take. I don't think there's any justification for the notion of this being an 'energy colonisation' or anything like that at all. It's a mutually beneficial project."

Question: How high is the interest in other countries? Some cynics would say Germany's expertise in renewable energies gives it a big advantage.
Gloser: So far the countries in the south and north have been in agreement about the project. Now the task is to identify the next steps. There are countries in both the south and north that are more interested in the project than others -- because, for example, they already have had positive experiences with renewable energy. That is not only Germany but also Spain and other countries. And on the other side of the Mediterranean there are countries that will have more interest at first than others.

Question: Some might see this project somewhat cynically as a vehicle to help German companies that already have such a considerable head start in know-how with renewable energy. What would you say to them?
Gloser: Obviously there are some important players (in Germany). But they are not only in Germany. Certainly we have built up a renewable energy sector in Germany, thanks to the right political framework a decade ago, that has created an enormous number of jobs. But Spain has also had an enormous development in recent years and in Denmark the wind energy sector has reached a large dimension with considerable know-how. But beyond those countries there are many other countries with companies and suppliers for the industry.

Question: Are there problems on the horizon being overlooked?
Gloser: In my eyes the biggest problem right now is that the expectations have possibly been raised too high. I'm someone who's thought: that's a great idea and why don't we take advantage of all these things at hand: know-how, sun belt, political cooperation, development, stability, security, partnership. There are so many positive aspects that come together. Now it's time to come up with some realistic timetables and see how we can move forward step-by-step to make this project a reality.

PHOTO: Mirrors are seen channelling sunlight onto a tube filled with oil during the dedication of Acciona's Nevada Solar One power plant in Boulder City, southeast of Las Vegas February 22, 2008. The 400-acre, 64-megawatt, concentrating solar power (CSP) plant is the third largest in the world, according to Acciona. The plant produces energy to power about 14,000 homes. REUTERS/Las Vegas Sun/Steve Marcus

Africa is the least electrified continent on the planet and getting power into the homes of millions of people who don’t have electricity is an enormous challenge.

Rwanda is Africa’s most densely populated country and 9 out of 10 people there don’t have electricity. The government is now tapping its own natural resources such as the methane deposits under Lake Kivu to try to meet the country’s growing energy
demands. 

The lake holds huge reserves of methane, a gas produced by the fermentation of sediments at the bottom of the lake.

Methane is combustible and can be used to produce electricity. But in high concentrations it can also be dangerous.

Alex Kabuto, chief technician at the methane extraction plant at the lake, says the amount of gas under the lake is increasing and it is good idea to extract it to reduce the risk of explosion.

“So the best way for us to do is to extract the gas, use it for energy and electricity it’s good for the country, and at the same time control the lake,” he told Reuters Africa Journal.

Rwanda’s first methane extraction rig opened only last year, after 5 years of building work. Lake Kivu’s methane reserves could satisfy Rwanda’s energy needs for the next 200 years.

And Rwanda desperately needs more energy. So far most of the country’s electricity has come from hydropower. But water levels are declining and 90 percent of Rwanda’s population aren’t even on the electricity grid yet.    

But the majority of homes without electricity are in the rural areas and in spite of the methane extraction it will take years to get the grid out to all the houses.

So in the meantime Rwanda is trying to get electricity to the people by focusing on renewable energy. Villagers in Rukore, 30 km north of Kigali, are adapting to biogas, a new technology introduced a few months ago.

Jean Claude Uwizeye, a government biogas technician, explains: “Cow dung is the main material we are using here in Rwanda because we found that many households have cows in their homes. Two to three cows are enough to produce gas for cooking
and lighting in their rural households.”

Biogas also helps protect the environment by giving rural residents an alternative to cutting down trees for firewood.

So far more than 300 biogas plants have been built around the country — but there are 9 million Rwandans who don’t have electricity. 

In a time of global warming and diminishing resources, powering up the millions of homes that are still in the dark is a major challenge.

But is it realistic for Rwanda to rely on its own natural resources, such as methane or biogas, to bring electricity into all its homes?

Should we really care that Britain’s House of Lords upheld a British government appeal on Wednesday, blocking the return of hundreds of Chagossians to their Indian Ocean homes?The decision by the House of Lords ends a years-long battle to secure the Chagos Islanders the right to return to their archipelago, from where they were forcibly removed in the 1960s and ’70s to make way for an American airbase on Diego Garcia.

By a ruling of 3-2, the lords backed a British government appeal that argued that allowing the islanders to return could have a detrimental effect on defence and international security. It’s a tough decision and an agonizing result for the Chagos islanders. They continue to suffer appalling injustice because of the British government, who booted them out of the Chagos islands - also known as the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) - to make way for a US military base.

But now the estimated 5,000 Chagossians are mostly scattered between Mauritius, Seychelles, and Britain. And the younger generations (many of whom are half Chagossian) don’t seem so keen to return. One expert has said that about 1,000 Chagossians could return to two of Chago’s six atolls, making a living from coconuts, fishing and ecotourism. But others say this outline plan has grossly underestimated the costs and practical difficulties. Should we, in fact, breathe a sigh of relief at the House of Lords’ decision?

Small islands like those in the Chagos Archipelago tend to have an incredibly rich variety of plants and animals, often found nowhere else. Scientists and sailors visiting the islands describe a near paradise of coral reefs teeming with fish. And examples from elsewhere in the Indian Ocean - Mauritius, Madagascar, Reunion, Comoros, and the Seychelles - show just how badly human populations can damage the environment.

The Chagos Archipelago, for example, has the largest coral atoll in the world, 10 so-called Important Bird Areas, ideal nesting conditions for two turtle species, and - according to tests in 1996 and 2006 - some of the world’s cleanest waters too. And while a 1998 rise in water temperatures killed as much as 95 percent of coral in some areas, Chagos’ reefs grew back probably because there is so little human activity, scientists say. The nearby Maldives were not so lucky.

A sense of justice tells us that Chagossians should be allowed to return. But if these islands truly are on the frontline in the battle against extinctions and if such clean and isolated regions are truly a rarity, then should we really be upset by the block on Chagossians’ return to their homeland?

After a decade of rampant destruction of the Mau forest water catchment in western Kenya, the country’s coalition government seems firmly united in trying to save the complex before more serious damage is inflicted on the economy.

U.N. officials say this is no longer simply an environmental issue but something that has huge importance for the whole country. Already two of the top three foreign exchange earners — tourism and tea — are feeling the impact of falling water levels which have also forced the postponement of a major hydro-electric project. 

Prime Minister Raila Odinga describes the forest’s destruction as a national emergency. Both foreign and local officials say there is no gap between Odinga and President Mwai Kibaki on the issue.

Saving the forest will involve huge costs to resettle and compensate some of the thousands of people living illegally there and restore tree cover which produces vital supplies of water. Officials say they expect international donors to provide major financial help.

Until a few months ago, the destruction of the forest was a familiar story of land grabbing, illegal logging and the allocation of government land to try to win votes. It began in 1997 when the government of Daniel arap Moi gave large plots away in exchange for electoral support.

Then, this year, the United Nations flew Odinga and other officials over the forest to show them the extent of the destruction, shocking them into urgent action.

The government is pushing ahead despite the fact that many of the area’s MPs and voters belong to Odinga’s ODM party. Unlike the past, political considerations are being pushed to one side in the national interest. U.N. officials call this process unique for a country long blighted by the depradations of powerful and greedy politicians.

This momentum is all the more striking because Odinga and Kibaki were bitter enemies before and during a bloody political crisis in the first two months of this year when around 1,500 people died in tribally-based clashes following the president’s disputed victory in an election.

Does the Mau forest issue mark a turning point in Kenyan politics or is it a one-off. What do you think?

The road to Kenya’s Tana River Delta from the Indian Ocean resort of Malindi is a lonely stretch of tarmac punctuated only by road blocks manned by armed police.

Few people from the outside world come this way.

Most foreign and local holidaymakers heading for the popular Lamu Islands prefer to fly rather than use the road.

On either side, grasslands stretch to the horizon. People here live as they have for decades, making a living from grazing animals and fishing.

But a proposed sugar and biofuels project would see 20,000 hectares of the pristine wetland planted with cane.

The plan has sparked anger among some locals and conservationists, who say it is a threat to their way of life and a precious eco-system.

I was given a tour of the area by government officials and the project backers.

View Larger Map

The government is working in partnership with the private sector to grow sugar in the area in a bid to fill an annual deficit, create jobs and latch onto enthusiasm for biofuels in the face of surging oil prices.

East Africa’s biggest economy imports about 200,000 tonnes of sugar every year as its western sugar belt does not produce enough to meet requirements.

But opponents of the Tana project say it will hurt livestock-keeping communities through loss of grazing lands and also threaten hundreds of wildlife species, including birds and rare sharks.

The pastoralists and the conservation groups, which include Nature Kenya and Britain’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, have filed a case against the project in court. Earlier this month, the nation’s high court stopped the project temporarily, pending a judicial review.

Kenya’s Nobel Laureate, environmentalist Wangari Maathai, has weighed in, saying no sugar or biofuel is worth messing with the delta.

Project backers say the area - which has a high rate of poverty and illiteracy - needs new investments as the only route to development.

Danson Mungatana, the local member of parliament, captured hopes of transforming the area when he told constituents they would get satellite TV and other modern amenities when the project is up and running.

But will the plans really benefit locals? Should the government go ahead?

How do you strike a balance between development and environmental protection? Is self-sufficiency in sugar, job creation and energy production a good reason for developing wetlands? What do you think?

MARSABIT, Kenya - We are in two Land Rover Defenders, headed north to Ethiopia through one of Kenya’s remotest and harshest areas.

Our route is along the Great North Road, the famed Cape Town-to-Cairo highway on what is said to be the only untarmacked stretch on the whole continent - roughly 550 kilometres from where the highway ends at Isiolo town north to Moyale on the Ethiopian border.  It has all the wildlife and stunning scenery Kenya is world-famous for, but few tourists ever see it.

This is part of the old Northern Frontier District, the arid top half of Kenya which was closed to visitors by the British colonial government because of its inaccessibility, harsh conditions and endless banditry.  Little has changed since independence in 1963.

 To call the wide track of dirt, ruts and rocks a road is an insult to other roads. It demands a four-wheel drive vehicle, and punishes any that comes with an endless succession of shuddering bumps, heat and fine dust that penetrates every corner. It has taken us two days to reach Marsabit, a mere 600 km from Nairobi. But out here, trips are measured by time, not by distance.

We - Reuters TV producer Patrick Muiruri, Reuters photographer Antony Njuguna, navigator Michael Githaiga and mechanics Frederick “British” Gappy,  Lawrence “Jughead” Waithaka and myself - are rolling in convoy in case one vehicle develops a problem. There is another reason to move together - safety in numbers. Cattle-rustling is still a rite of passage for young warriors among the nomadic peoples that roam the dry plains with herds of cattle, goats, camels and sheep. It has intensified in recent decades thanks to an influx of automatic weapons from conflicts in neighbouring Somalia and Sudan.

Violence here is regular and can easily spill over into outright warfare. Banditry has also blossomed in these badlands.

The government presence here is thinly stretched and usually without the equipment needed to police the problem, leaving police and paramilitary soldiers in a reactive position. Electricty, water and functioning telephones are rare sights, and in most places were never brought by the state-owned utilities. Schools are there, but it is difficult for teachers to get students from wandering clans. Most schoolchildren in other parts of Kenya are speaking English and Swahili by the age of 5; here, it is common to find boys of 15 who cannot speak Swahili - the lingua franca of a nation with more than 42 different ethnic groups.

Local people speak of Kenya Mbili - Two Kenyas - the developed southern half, and theirs, the forgotten and neglected one.

“When someone leaves for Nairobi, people say he has gone to Kenya.
There is a sense of being second class, neglected,” said Hussein Sasura, a native of the Marsabit area, told us. Sasura is also the assistant minister in the new Ministry for Northern and Arid Lands, which aims to bring development to this vast region.
He’s optimistic that things are finally changing after 45 years of independence, from which the north has rarely tasted any fruits.

Two big developments are already inching their way north. Chinese engineers are beginning to lay 136 km of asphalt from Isiolo to near the Merille River, the first phase of a plan to finish the road to Moyale. Already, tourist lodges and wildlife managers are planning for an upsurge in tourists to an area that usually is reached by light aircraft or those willing to make the punishing trip to see some of Kenya’s still-unspoiled beauty.

Moving faster is a team of engineers laying a fibre optic cable alongside the road, working under a Ministry of Information and Communication contract to bring internet and telephone service to all corners of the country. Digging with a 10-metre long cable-laying machine, they say they expect to hit the border in about two months.

And oil men from China are already prospecting in Merti, and have plans to look elsewhere in a region rumoured for decades to have oil. All this means more people will be in the district, but will it bring all the attendant commerce and development? Can the highway bring more tourists and help tame the insecurity? Will the road and communications infrastructure finally unite the Two Kenyas?