Inexcusable Absence: Why 60 Million Girls Still Aren't in School and What to Do About It, by Lewis Maureen A, Lockheed Marlaine E (Washington D.C.: Center for global Development, 2006, pp. 180+xiv

✍ Scribed by Patricia Oliart

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 34 KB
• Volume: 21
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0954-1748
• DOI: 10.1002/jid.1485

✦ Synopsis

Mwangola), women (Nasong'o and Ayot), intellectuals (Amutabi) and the police (Gimode), in a section on 'Major Constituencies in the Democratisation Process'; and ends with two chapters on the role of donors under structural adjustment (Murunga) and as promoters of democratisation (Brown), which acts to summarise Kenya's external relations within the political economy of development. The value of the book is enhanced by the excellent conceptual definitions given at the beginning of each chapter: it also summarises the contemporary debate, in Kenya and beyond, on the generic subjects, including, and memorably for me in particular, on gender (Nasong'o and Ayot,; intellectuals (Amutabi,; and the role of youth and intergenerational transfer of power, including specifically in Kenyan tradition (Mwangola,. It also provides good definition and analysis of many political science and economic concepts, including those of the state, democracy and economic reform.

The last section, along with preceding contributions, debunks commonly believed Northern leit motifs that donors were at the vanguard of the struggle for democracy; who, because of the freezing of funds, won multipartyism in 1992 (a success of civil society and the Forum for Restoration of Democracy (FORD), (Nasong'o, p. 38)), and then who removed Moi (the result of a united opposition and the NARC). Elections per se were not the panacea that donors expected, within a winner-takes-all system that concentrates power, such that lenders, 'while supporting democracy, also worked to bolster authoritarian tendencies, thereby pushing social movements in Kenya to adjust not only to internal impediments to democracy but also to external ones' (Nasong'o and Murunga, p. 10). Moi, we are reminded, made a good business partner during the Cold War, and, for a long time, did 'good enough governance' after.

Kenyans voted an incumbent out of power in 2002; they defeated the 2005 referendum on a new constitution (and forced a compromise in 2008) which 'inspired a new sense of confidence in ordinary people to make a difference. This is important to sustain the initiative to transform the state, and it is herein that the prospects for democracy in Kenya lie' (Nasong'o and Murunga, p. 15). Well said. These authors have met the challenge of the intellectual laid done by , of constant alertness against half-truths and misconceptions on behalf of the majority wananchi (citizens).