Borrowed Lives: Kenya's Personal Debt Emergency | Radha Upadhyaya and Naomi Barasa

Borrowed Lives: Kenya's Personal Debt Emergency | Radha Upadhyaya and Naomi Barasa

Nine out of ten Kenyan households are in financial distress. Not the country — the household. Your neighbor. Your mother. You. Fuliza alone disbursed 1.24 trillion shillings last year. People are skipping meals to service loans of a thousand shillings. Young people can't get jobs because they're CRB-listed. A regulator built for 42 banks is now chasing hundreds of lenders and losing.In this episode, Dr. Mamka Anyona sits down with development economist and University of Nairobi associate professor Radha Upadhyaya and feminist community organizer Naomi Barasa to trace how a celebrated financial inclusion story quietly became a personal debt emergency.This is a conversation about structural adjustment hiding inside an app, about debt as a tool of social fragmentation, and about what it means to organize for dignity when you're too busy worrying about collection day. Watch A Certain Amount of Madness on⁠⁠ YouTube⁠⁠ [https://www.youtube.com/@CertainMadnessPod] Follow us on Social media: ⁠⁠Twitter (X)⁠⁠ [https://x.com/amadnesspod] ⁠⁠Tiktok⁠⁠ [https://tiktok.com.com/amadnesspod] ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠ [https://instagram.com/amadnesspod] Thank you for listening.

EP 11: Beyond Protests: Mass Mobilization for Meaningful Socio-Political Change.

A decade of protests – the 2010s – taught us that mass movements require a theory of change and an action plan to achieve it paired with effective organizing.  The Gen Z protests in Kenya demonstrated the power of the will of the people but also the limitations of streets-focused actions to achieve real structural change.  In this moment of rebalancing global power because of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, we ask: “How do we ensure that we channel those energies and frustrations of the streets to achieve our goals of people-centred governance through collective actions by means beyond street-led protests?” Watch A Certain Amount of Madness on⁠⁠ YouTube⁠⁠ [https://www.youtube.com/@CertainMadnessPod] Follow us on Social media: ⁠⁠Twitter (X)⁠⁠ [https://x.com/amadnesspod] ⁠⁠Tiktok⁠⁠ [https://tiktok.com.com/amadnesspod] ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠ [https://instagram.com/amadnesspod] Thank you for listening. Don't forget to follow the podcast. There's a lot more to come.

EP 10: WAR! What is it good for? David Hundeyin on the implications for Africa of the US/Israel-Iran war

In a speech at the Munich Security Conference on 14 February, Marco Rubio, the United States’ Secretary of State extolled the virtues of empire and denounced anti-colonial and decolonial movements of the 20th Century. Two weeks later, the United States and Israel launched a missile killing 175 girls and staff in a school in the southern city of Minab, in what is widely understood to be the opening salvo of WWIII. As of this recording, just over a week later, it is believed that 1,500 people have been killed in a war that has spread to 12 countries. In our conversation with David Hundeyin, Nigerian journalist and author, we discuss the implications for Africa which go far beyond the price of oil. This war is about whose consciousness gets to define reality in the 21st century. For Africa, it may be our first opportunity in a lifetime to redefine our sovereignty. Watch A Certain Amount of Madness on⁠ YouTube⁠ [https://www.youtube.com/@CertainMadnessPod] Follow us on Social media: ⁠Twitter (X)⁠ [https://x.com/amadnesspod] ⁠Tiktok⁠ [https://tiktok.com.com/amadnesspod] ⁠Instagram⁠ [https://instagram.com/amadnesspod] Thank you for listening. Don't forget to follow the podcast. There's a lot more to come.

EP 9: The Great Kenyan Sell off: How Privatisation is Killing Kenyans

This episode explores how privatization, shrinking public services, and climate-driven land grabs are reshaping Kenya. The discussion breaks down the push to sell state assets, the impact of structural adjustment, the rise of user fees, and the growing threat of green colonialism across water, land, and conservation spaces. You also hear a clear unpacking of the new Government-Owned Enterprises Act and what it means for sovereignty, accountability, and everyday life. Host: Mamka Anyona ("A Certain Amount of Madness" podcast)Panelists: Kevin Arenda Ovi (human rights lawyer), Dr. Mordecai Ogada (conservation policy expert, author of The Green and Evil), and Wanjira Kinotti (feminist, pan-Africanist, global lead for women's rights at ActionAid). Watch A Certain Amount of Madness on⁠ YouTube⁠ [https://www.youtube.com/@CertainMadnessPod] Follow us on Social media: ⁠Twitter (X)⁠ [https://x.com/amadnesspod] ⁠Tiktok⁠ [https://tiktok.com.com/amadnesspod] ⁠Instagram⁠ [https://instagram.com/amadnesspod] Thank you for listening. Don't forget to follow the podcast. There's a lot more to come.

EP 8: Kenya's Hand in the Global War on Terror

In this episode, Dr. Samar Al-Bulushi and Rene Odanga join us as we explore the ways that Kenya's participation in the global "War on Terror" created mechanisms that are used to this day to suppress dissent, including the widely reported surveillance, arbitrary arrest, abduction, enforced disappearance and extrajudicial killing during the Gen Z protests of 2024 and 2025. Following the August 7th 1998 attack in Nairobi, Kenya ramped up its policing against its citizens in Northern Kenya and the Coastal region who had always been racialized as "other" since the pre-independence era. Supported heavily by the United States, Israel and other imperial powers, Kenya militarized its policing, introducing units such as the Anti Terror Police Unit and the Rapid Response Unit, which used the Anti-Terrorism Act to act with almost absolute impunity against Kenyan citizens. These are the same forces that continue to be used against dissenting Kenyans today to prop up the government in the aftermath of the #RejectFinanceBill protests and waning popularity of Ruto’s administration amidst unemployment, rising poverty, and other crises in the country. In the conversation, we also touch on the ways in which Kenya has become a sub-imperial power, building its own international image by intervening in other global South states such as Somalia and Haiti. For those watching from Nairobi/Kenya, Dr. Al-Bulushi’s book, War-making as World Making: Kenya, the United States and the War on Terror, which forms the basis of this discussion, can be found for sale at Cheche Bookshop in Lavington and online [https://www.amazon.com/War-Making-Worldmaking-United-States-Terror/dp/1503640914] Watch A Certain Amount of Madness on⁠ YouTube⁠ [https://www.youtube.com/@CertainMadnessPod] Follow us on Social media: ⁠Twitter (X)⁠ [https://x.com/amadnesspod] ⁠Tiktok⁠ [https://tiktok.com.com/amadnesspod] ⁠Instagram⁠ [https://instagram.com/amadnesspod] Thank you for listening. Don't forget to follow the podcast. There's a lot more to come.