Peace Policy passing through grass roots

The National Peace Policy drafted by the Office of the President widely reflects the views of civil society organizations. MS Kenya partner Peacenet took the draft to more than 200 organizations for comments and now hope that the policy will become law next year

By Morten Bonde Pedersen

22. November 2007

Peacenet, a national umbrella body of civil society organizations and individuals supporting peace, has been criticized for working closely together with the government.

Criticism was aired after the Nairobi based organization in 2004 took a seat in the National Steering Committee (NSC) on Peace Building and Conflict Management under the Office of the President.

Peacenet, a national umbrella body of civil society organizations and individuals supporting peace, has been criticized for working closely together with the government.

Criticism was aired after the Nairobi based organization in 2004 took a seat in the National Steering Committee (NSC) on Peace Building and Conflict Management under the Office of the President.

Looking back on the process today, three years later, Peacenet has no regrets having been seated next to District Commissioners and other government officials in the NSC.

On the contrary, Grace Ireri who is a Programme Officer with the network is happy to have had hands on the policy which was finally drafted in June this year.

“We have come from a point where civil society has only been criticizing the government to a point where we sit and work together. Some think that we have compromised ourselves by cooperating so closely with the government, but it has given us influence and access to information and high office for lobbying purposes,” she explains. 

The history behind civil society involvement in the policy process began in February 2004 when the Office of the President, through the NSC, unveiled a draft Policy development framework for conflict prevention, peace building and public safety.
In May 2005, the government of Kenya formally opened the doors for input into the actual policy development process from interested actors. Peacenet rallied together the civil society organizations at the national and provincial levels to debate and make input into the draft peace policy.

At this point, the NSC hired the services of three consultants who were tasked to go around the country to collect views, experiences, lessons and perspectives from all the different actors (government ministries, communities, civil society, private sector and courts of justice among many others).

The product of these consultation gave forth to a “zero” draft which more or less contained semi-processed raw data from the field.

It is at this point that PeaceNet among other NSC members got copies of the draft. With funding from MS Kenya PeaceNet hired consultants to critique the zero draft from a civil society perspective.  During a national civil society meeting at Machakos in July 2006, all key organizations (both national and international) attended and together adopted the enhanced version upon agreed additions/amendments as the document to take to grassroots/regions for consultations.

Peacenet has officially been allocated one of the seats in the NSC slotted for the civil society. However, when the consultation phase began the Peacenet representative found that a few seats for CSOs in a government body were limited to constitute a platform for the broader civil society.

Peacenet wanted to give civil society further democratic space and hence took the draft policy to a wide number of civil society organizations.

“When we took the draft policy to the civil society, it was still in the process at the NSC. We must admit that the NSC was not happy about this, but we needed our own space. We should have done it jointly, but we knew that the DCs would not listen if we had to raise our voice in the NSC,” Grace Ireri says

The consultation process carried out autonomously by Peacenet was not in line with the official hearing process. But Grace Ireri has no doubt that the process has benefited from the initiative

“When we had to harmonize the two versions, the NSC benefited from our work,” she claims.

The final draft which Grace Ireri hopes will be tabled in parliament next year does in her opinion fairly well reflect the views of the civil society.

“To a large extent, we are satisfied with how the comments from the civil society have been captured in the final draft which came out in July this year,” she says pointing out passages in the policy appearing under the headline ‘response from ‘non-state actors.

According to PeaceNet Board Chair, the current draft contains on the upward of 60% of the civil society draft. This he describes as a ‘milestone’.

The ensuing consolidation of the two drafts gave way to the 1^st draft in July 2006 and this heralded a joint process.NSC has since then depended on civil society participation in the ensuing stages of the draft.

So far the peace policy has no legal value as it has not been passed through parliament. According to Grace Ireri, finalizing the policy is merely taking the first step out of three towards making a difference on the ground.

The next step is to have the policy turned in to a bill and approved by parliament, and the third step will then be to have it implemented

For now Grace Ireri has got her mind set on the parliamentary process which will best take place within the first half of next year after elections.

“MPs have to look in to the policy critically. We want the civil society to take them through the content. Consulting the MPs may take some time, and they may come up with individual proposals for changes,” she explains.
Peacenet works closely with other NGOs such as The Amani group, which forms support groups to put pressure on the government to give conflict issues political attention. The Amani group will also be the ones to take MPs through the policy.

When – or if – the bill is approved by the MPs, it will go to the permanent secretary of the ministry of the office of the president before it becomes law.

With elections coming up, it is hard to predict what will be the timeline for the political process. But Grace Ireri hopes for the policy to be tabled in parliament in April next year.

She does not anticipate a change of government to lower the chances of approval in parliament. As she argues:

“Conflicts should be an issue of concern to anyone in the country. Adopting a peace policy must be a good case for any government to gain popularity.”