Editorial

A global food shortage stares us on the face. This phenomenon is partly attributable to and further worsened by the escalating energy costs as a result of increasing oil prices at the international market. The United Nations fears that the ‘silent tsunami’ could drive 100 million people across the globe into deeper poverty. In a 2005 research report, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) predicted that 600 million people – a majority from sub-Saharan Africa – will suffer from hunger globally by 2015 if no major changes in development practices are realised. Prof. Okello Oculli argues here that African societies could suffer less devastation from such downturns if the continent managed its food resources a little more innovatively and with positive exploration.
Granted that a community’s eating habits (including the staple food) are part of its culture, there is, however, little ‘exchange of food resources’ across countries and/or communities in the continent. The regional blocs have themselves become food blocs of sorts. East Africans, for instance, eat more or less the same stuff in member states, and would never imagine taking down their throats some of the delicacies of West Africa. When people travel across regions in Africa, they return to tell stories about their food experiences, always to the amazement of members of their communities. What is needed is a Pan-African eating culture that promotes systematic support across regions and cultures so as to enhance the continent’s overall food security.   
The dust has settled in Kenya and the books are now open for the inscription of academic analysis and commentary on the events of the last half year. The African Research and Resource Forum (ARRF) organised an East African seminar on the regional dimensions of Kenya’s post-election crisis last March. Prof. Mwesiga Baregu from the Department of Political Science at the University of Dar es Salaam led the discussions in which leading academics, researchers and activists from the region participated.
Opinion was undivided on the great extent to which countries in the region are interlinked. Participants from Uganda and South Sudan narrated how they had experienced shortages of consumer goods in both the urban and rural areas in their countries during the period of the Kenyan crisis. Many Tanzanian students learning in Kenya or Uganda could not return to their institutions for the re-opening at the beginning of the year. Jeremy Ng’ang’a has authored an article in review of the event (the seminar).  But other scholars have also not shirked from their responsibilities in this regard. Prof. Godwin Murunga’s rejoinder to a recently published ‘policy brief’ on the subject vents into what is likely to become a stimulating intellectual debate in the coming days.
The formation of the grand coalition in Kenya as a result of the mediation process to mitigate the effects of the controversial 2007 elections is in fact an imposition of a new governing order in the country. The civil society in Kenya is faced with the challenge of safeguarding the country’s hard earned democratic gains even in the face of this epochal development. 
This year, ARRF is implementing a project on regional discourses to strengthen the Kenyan civil society in the wake of new challenges posed by the emergence of a new political order in the country. Because of the acknowledged similarities of circumstances across the region, ARRF will, in this project, promote interactive learning and sharing of experiences among the leadership of the Kenyan civil society and selected scholars and activists from Eastern and the rest of Africa. 
There are many more regional activities and programmes lined up for implementation in the Forum’s short-term and long-term plans. We will keep you informed.
Meanwhile, enjoy your reading!

Editor