For a couple of days in December, Pastor Jonathan Yosi was away from his New Hope Churches of Kenya attending a workshop on reducing the debt burden in Africa in a hotel boardroom in Nairobi. The presentations oscillated from the rights of citizens as per the constitution to public finance management and the importance of public participation in the running of government.
Yosi, who ministers in Imara Daima a few kilometers to the eastern outskirts of Nairobi, followed keenly as experts in human rights and public finance management went through the sessions. “Your advocacy is only as good as the evidence you have,” Joshua Muteti, a political economist from Transparency International told the attendees, pointing at his PowerPoint presentation.
During one of the breaks, Yosi committed to use his pulpit to rally against the country’s runaway debt and compel the government to manage it responsibly.
About the author
Anthony Langat
Anthony Langat is a Kenya-based Devex Contributing Reporter whose work centers on environment, climate change, health, and security. He was part of an International Consortium of Investigative Journalism’s multi-award winning 2015 investigation which unearthed the World Bank’s complacence in the evictions of indigenous people across the world. He has five years’ experience in development and investigative reporting and has been published by Al Jazeera, Mongabay, Us News & World Report, Equal Times, News Deeply, Thomson Reuters Foundation, and Devex among others.
