Nairobi, 6 July 2011 – The Dialogue Team of the Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation (KNDR) held its ninth review meeting today on the status of implementation of the KNDR agreements.
The meeting discussed the findings of a report prepared by South Consulting – the research firm designated by the Panel of Eminent African Personalities to undertake independent monitoring and evaluation of the implementation process. The report is available for download at www.dialoguekenya.org.
The focus of the report was the ICC and the fight against impunity; the challenge of resettling Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), implementation of the new constitution, and preparations for the next General Election.
An overall finding of the South report was that whereas at the end of 2010, many Kenyans stated that life was better and that they felt safer compared to 2008, by June 2011, many people now felt that life was getting worse than 12 months ago and only half of the people surveyed felt safer. People cited the rising cost of living and inflation in general as the main challenges facing the country.
On the ICC and the fight against impunity, the South report found that many Kenyans still believe that the prosecution of perpetrators of violence will prevent a recurrence of violence in 2012. The public is, however, disillusioned by the lack of progress in arresting lower and middle level perpetrators and holding senior and influential people to account. The South report concluded that the failure to prosecute political and civil crimes had eroded public confidence in the Government’s ability and willingness to fight impunity.
On the challenge of resettling IDPs, the report stated that the government had made efforts to find durable solutions to IDPs, but that IDPs still remain in camps. The South report found that the challenges that had faced the resettlement programme stemmed from a failure to carry out a comprehensive registration and profiling of IDPs at the outset. According to the report, the presence of IDPs in camps, three years after the signing of the National Accord, demonstrated that communities had not fully reconciled and that reforms had been insufficient in that regard.
Concerning the implementation of the new constitution, the South report noted that there had been progress in passing some of the laws prioritized under the Fifth Schedule, but that Parliament would need to speed up the legislative process to meet the Constitution’s 27 August 2011 deadline of other legislation. The South report concluded that divisions in Parliament would have to be resolved for it to effectively meet the deadline. Similarly, the report found that a lack of bi-partisan leadership and internal conflicts in the coalition were also slowing the pace of implementing the Constitution.
Regarding the next elections, the South report stated that critical institutions, laws and processes for the elections needed to be put in place early enough to enable adequate preparation to be made. There was a need to fast-track police reforms and electoral laws to ensure a clean and peaceful election. The report also concluded that to ensure that the requisite institutional and logistical measures were put in place in good time, the date for the next General Election had to be clarified as soon as possible.
At today’s meeting, the Dialogue Team took note of the findings and conclusions of the South report and reaffirmed the importance of comprehensive implementation of the KNDR Agreements.
The Dialogue Team agreed that the next meeting would be held in October, 2011
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