Good Governance and Development. Toward Quality Leadership in Kenya

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Description

Using Kenya as a case-study to mirror other African countries this book interrogates the phenomenon of leadership, within and without the political domain.

Sujets

• African Studies

Informations

• Publié par: Twaweza Communications
• Date de parution: 15 mars 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789966028129
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Governance and Development

Towards Quality Leadership in Kenya

Edited by Kimani Njogu

Copyright © Twaweza Communications, 2007

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

First Published in 2007 by

Twaweza Communications Ltd., P.O. Box 66872 - 00800 Westlands, Twaweza House, Parklands Road, Mpesi Lane, Nairobi Kenya email: [e-mail] websire: www.twaweza.org Tel: +(254)020 3752009 Fax: +(254)020 3753941

Design and Layout by Catherine Bosire Cover Design by Patrick Thirimu

With the support of The Ford Foundation, Office of Eastern Africa

ISBN:9966 9743 5 0

Printed in Kenya, East Africa

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the youth of Africa who must work hard to revive the spirit of Pan-Africanism and facilitate the rebirth of the continent.

Acknowledgements Foreword Introduction

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Leadership,Youth and Culture Kimani Njogu

Contents

Constitution and Leadership in East Africa:The Crisis PLO Lumumba

The Law and Leadership – The Post-Colonial Experience in Kenya Kibe Mungai

Leadership Challenges in the African Diaspora Macharia Munene

Politics and Alternative Leadership in Africa Eric Masinde Aseka

Women And Leadership in Africa: A Case of Deviate or Die Njeri Kang’ethe

“Bodily Contrariness”: Some Preliminary Questions on Disability and Leadership in Kenya MbuguaWa- Mungai

Religion and Leadership:The Creation of a Just Society Philomena N. Mwaura

Leadership and Economic Development in the Informal Sector Mark O. Ogutu

10 Leadership and Economic Development: What Type of Leadership Facilitates Rapid Economic Advancement? Sunny Bindra

About the Contributors Index

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Acknowledgements

This book has a collection of articles presented and discussed at a LeadershipWorkshop held in August 2005 in Nairobi and organized by Twaweza Communications. The workshop was funded by the Ford Foundation Office of Eastern Africa and we are immensely grateful to Dr. Tade Aina for making it possible to address leadership issues in Kenya in a rigorous manner and supporting the publication of this book. Equally, we are thankful to the participants who provided valuable input into the presentations by raising questions and suggesting options. We are also indebted to the contributors who took the time to think with us about the leadership question in Kenya. They raise key questions about leadership styles and priorities and suggest ways in which matters could be re-arraigned so that leadership is more responsive to the needs of the public. We hope that the issues raised in this book can become points of reference in examining how leadership work ought to be undertaken in Africa. The hard working team atTwaweza Communications deserves gratitude for not only organizing the LeadershipWorkshop but also for carrying forward the leadership agenda.Thank you all for being patient and understanding. I am grateful to Catherine Bosire for typesetting the manuscript and designing it and to RichardWafula for the index. Without you, the reader, this book would not have been possible.The contributors had you in mind as they put their thoughts and words together.We hope that you will find something of value, between the pages, and that you will continue the discussion in your own interactions. This book is part of the leadership work being undertaken by Twaweza Communications. Whether it is to develop cultural leadership throughJahazi: The Arts, Culture, and Performance Journal,the interactions between academicians and art practitioners, the development of Kiswahili, networking with the media, mentoring younger scholars, or the work with political parties in Kenya to assemble viable platforms, Twaweza Communications is surely making a difference in the conceptualization of leadership in Kenya. We would like to thank all those who make our work possible.

Kimani Njogu, Ph.D.

Foreword

Quality Leadership:The beginning of an important conversation This book is an important contribution to the debate and the imagining of what it means to have an alternative and transformational mode of leadership in East Africa today. It is an important contribution because it transcends the self-flagellation and Afro-pessimism that have characterized previous analyses and discussions on th contemporary leadership in late 20 Century Africa. Through presenting us with a set of critical but optimistic and affirmative contributions, the book unravels the bases of the current sorry state of leadership in Kenya in particular and East Africa in general. Proceeding from the analyses, one finds that the book then moves on to affirmatively examine and declare the many possibilities embodied in the emergence of new and alternative notions, practices and agents of leadership in East Africa.The authors demonstrate a concern with leadership that goes beyond the conventional tired and often monolithic terrain of leadership, that of the formal political domain. Appropriating a notion of the ‘political’ that encompasses wide regions of the public sphere, the authors challenge the conventional wisdom in much of social science and management literature discourse on leadership by examining leadership that touches on religion, women’s rights, youth and people with disability. What we have in this book is an exploration of leadership beyond the focus on the conventional elites and extended to those groups that are normally excluded, marginalized and often times made invisible by the dominant political structures and intellectual discourse in Kenya and East Africa. There is also the challenge to the fixation with place bound and nativist discourse on leadership through the examination of the conditions, place and role of theAfrican Diaspora.Through these contributions, we find in this book, a freshness, courage and vitality that are missing in the conventional literature on leadership in Kenya.We also find the beginning of a new kind of imagination and vision around leadership driven by implicit and explicit affirmation of social justice, rights and democracy. Leadership begins to take on value and depth beyond managerialist and technocratic orientations and belief. All of these of course do not deny the need for training, expertise or the building of the necessary capacity for demonstrating and ensuring leadership.