Suchergebnisse

This article analyses the civil–military relations in Kenya in the context of civilian-activated politicization that is taking place the same way it happens in Latin America and the United States under the former Trump administration. In Kenya, this involves the use of the military in noncombat internal missions such as infrastructure development and management of public institutions especially where such institutions are perceived to be inefficient due to corruption both in public and private sectors. Judging from the outcomes of public works undertaken by the military, corruption and inefficiencies cannot be ruled out. This is demonstrated by the Kenya–Somalia Border Securitization Project where 34 million dollars was used to erect a 10-km fence in the war against terrorism. The outcomes of this study negate the logic of the proponents of developmental militarism in Africa who have been vocal in advocating the deployment of the soldiers to solve noncombat social challenges in the continent. Based on three case studies examined, deploying the military to engage in public works projects brings the military into a political minefield, is not productive, and proves to be an unreliable way to combat internal political corruption.

Konza technology city has been proposed as a flagship project in the ICT sector that would propel the Republic of Kenya to the status of a newly industrializing, middle-income country providing a high quality of life to all its citizens by 2030. It is billed as a sustainable, eco-friendly and smart city. Taking the perspective of the built environment, this paper evaluates the sustainability claims of the project against the sustainable development needs of the African city and its denizens. First, the project's aim and objectives are laid out followed by a detailing of the project proposals concerning its governance structure, its master plan, its PPP strategy and its smart city prospects. This is followed by an evaluation of the project and the key proposals in the context of sustainable urban development. These include the rationale of the project, the suitability of site, the governance and inclusive development. In the end, a conclusion is reached that Konza's smart city project proposals are not a set of sustainable solutions in the context of Africa's urban development needs.

This article reviews the smart city as a policy concept in Abu Dhabi. It conceptualizes smart city development goals into urban and extra-urban and review smart city development programmes in terms of ex-post and ex-ante. Extra-urban refers to development goals that go beyond the spatial or conceptual boundaries of the city. This will help to demonstrate how the pursuit of extra-urban may compromise the attainment of urban development goals. The paper uses Abu Dhabi as the frontline city in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in the race to attain the smart city status, having led consistently in the McKinsey Global Institute poll of 2018 and the global indexing exercises conducted by the International Institute for Management Development and Singapore University of Technology and Design in 2020 and 2021. The study has used qualitative document analysis method to review policy documents regarding the smartification initiatives in Abu Dhabi. The analysis reveals that ex-post programmes are more urban dweller oriented or urban centred with programmes involving the digitization of government services and free Wi-Fi connectivity in public transport, while ex-ante smartification programmes (as seen in the development of Masdar city) tend to be extra-urban, elitist and global in nature but do not take into account social sustainability.