The UN Development Programme (UNDP) on Wednesday launched the first Kiswahili edition of its 2013 Human Development Report.

The launch was hosted by Pwani University on Kenya’s the Indian Ocean shore in what is considered the heart of the coastal region where Kiswahili originated.

UNDP says Kiswahili is especially important because it is now spoken by an estimated 150 million people and is an official language in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

To find out more about this, UN Radio’s Derrick Mbatha sat down with Khalid Malik, Director of the UNDP’s Human Development Report Office in New York.

Duration: 4'44"