Podcasts
High Level Panel Session on SSR (East Africa): Concluding Session (03-10-12)
Moderator: Dr. Michal Mlynár, Ambassador of Slovakia with residence in Nairobi and Chair of the ISSAT Governing Board
Speaker:
Ambassador Sahle-Work Zewde, Director General of the UN Office at Nairobi (UNON) (TBC)
Ambassador Nancy Kirui, CBS, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of State for Defence, Kenya
High Level Panel Session on SSR (East Africa): Regional and International Support to National SSR (Session 6: 03-10-12)
Moderator: Dr. Mark Downes, Head of DCAF’s International Security Sector Advisory Team (ISSAT)
Speakers:
Mr. Joel Hellman, Director, Global Center on Conflict, Security and Development, the World Bank
Mr. Aeneas Chuma, UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative for Kenya
Professor Eboe Hutchful, Chair of the African Security Sector Network (ASSN)
Dr. Serge Rumin, Director of the Security Sector Development Programme, Memorandum of Understanding Burundi-Netherlands
High Level Panel Session on SSR (East Africa): the EAC and IGAD on SSR (Session 7: 03-10-12)
Moderator: Mr. Gabriel Negatu, Regional Director for the East Africa Resource Centre, African Development Bank (AfDB)
Speakers:
Dr. Julius T. Rotich, Deputy Secretary General (Political Federation), East African Community (EAC)
Mr. David W. Njoka,Director of Political Affairs, Ministry for the East African Community (EAC)-Kenya
Commander Abebe Muluneh Beyene, Head, IGAD Security Sector Program (ISSP)
Dr. Medhane Tadesse Gebresilassie, African Security Sector Network’s Senior SSR Adviser to the African Union
Policy and Research Papers
Keeping the peace in Kenya: Lessons learned from the prevention of election-related violence in 2013
The outcome report of a joint initiative by the Graduate Institute’s Applied Research Seminar and the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform. This project had the objective to develop a better understanding of the workings of preventive actions surrounding the Kenyan elections of 2013. Over 6 months, this project conducted a thorough review of the literature and 19 semi-structured interviews with prevention experts in Kenya, Geneva and New York. This project occurred as part of the work stream on 'Prevention and Peacebuilding' of the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform and hopes to expand the evidence base of effective prevention practice.
New Technologies for Improving Old Public Security Challenges in Nairobi
This Strategic Note maps out the digital environment shaping public security in selected informal settlements of Nairobi. It considers the diverse ways in which information communication technologies (ICTs) are being adopted by Kenyan police in informal settlements and by the community in Mathare, one of Nairobi’s most violent informal settlements (or slum). It highlights the views and attitudes of police working in different informal settlements and identifies opportunities and challenges for the introduction of new smart policing tools in the Nairobi context. The use of digital technologies can potentially enhance accountability within the police while simultaneously providing a layer of protection for patrolling officers and improved community safety.
A Case Study of Counter Violent Extremism (CVE) Programming: Lessons from OTI’s Kenya Transition Initiative
Between 2011 and 2014 the USAID Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI)’s Kenya Transition Initiative implemented what was essentially a pilot program of the new Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) concept. Aiming to counter the drivers of ‘violent extremism’ (VE), this operated through a system of small grants funding activities such as livelihood training, cultural events, community debates on sensitive topics, counselling for post-traumatic stress disorder, and so on. This paper delivers lessons from the program, generated via an independent evaluation, offering insights of relevance to the broader CVE community of practitioners. A first overarching conclusion is that programming decisions would have benefitted from a more comprehensive understanding of VE in the local context. For instance, subsets of the population more narrowly ‘at-risk’ of being attracted to VE should have been identified and targeted (e.g. potentially teenagers, ex-convicts, members of specific clans, and so on), and a greater focus should have been placed upon comprehending the relevance of material incentives, fear, status-seeking, adventure-seeking, and other such individual-level drivers. A second conclusion is that the KTI team would have profited from additional top-level guidance from their donors, for instance, providing direction on the extent to which efforts should have been targeted at those supportive of violence versus those directly involved in its creation, the risks associated with donor branding, and contexts in which the pejorative term ‘extremism’ should have been pragmatically replaced by neutral terminology. As a priority donors and the wider community should also provide suitable definitions of the CVE concept, rather than leaving practitioners to construe (undoubtedly inconsistently) it’s meaning from the available definitions of VE.
Cattle Rustling and Insecurity in Africa: A Comparative Perspective
Cattle rustling is on the rise in various African countries, with the associated number of deaths, both amongst cattle rustlers, security forces and affected populations reaching problematic proportions. Yet, there is limited policy-oriented research on this matter ranging the security-development continuum. This ISSAT brief, developed as part of the mandate Reinforcing African Union SSR Unit support to national SSR processes draws on existing literature, and provides an overview of cattle rustling in Madagascar, Lesotho, South Africa, Uganda, Nigeria and Kenya. A brief contextualisation is provided for each country, before outlining the security measures implemented to tackle the challenge, and deriving recommendations.
For full access to the paper, Cattle Rustling and Insecurity in Africa: A Comparative Perspective, kindly follow the link.
The Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation - Building a Progressive Kenya - Our Common Vision: Vision of Stakeholders
This document reflects the discussions of the “Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation: Building a Progressive Kenya” conference, which took place in Nairobi on 5 – 6 December, 2011. Held in the aftermath of a process of nationwide dialogue and at the invitation of the AU Panel of Eminent African Personalities, various stakeholder groups representing a wide cross-section of views and perspectives of Kenyan society participated at this conference so as to coalesce these views around the implementation of the objectives and goals of the KNDR process
Books
Kenya Judicial Sector Assessment : Social Context in the Magistrates Courts
The proposed judicial sector assessment will focus on justice at the level of magistrate courts in Kenya. In addition to the general challenges faced by magistrates, it will concentrate on the role of the social context in dispensing justice. Social context in this sense means underlying socio-cultural structures and belief systems of a community as well as socio-economic backgrounds. This Economic and Sector Work (ESW) will assess the extent to which the social context of a particular region jeopardizes equality before the law; whether magistrates take the social context into account in their judgments; and the degree to which they can take it into account within the limits of the law. The main objective of the assessment is to better understand magistrate needs given the various socio-economic environments of Kenya within which they work. These insights will be used to inform ongoing justice sector reform strategies with the aim of making the magistracy service more equitable and accessible.
Other Documents
ASSN Quarterly Newsletter Nr. 6 January 2013
ASSN Quarterly is published by the African Security Sector Network. It highlights the activities of the network, as well as other developments in the fields of Security and Justice Reform, both in Africa and beyond.
Below are some of the highlights in this edition:
- The African Union Launches a Programme to Build its Security Sector Reform (SSR) Capacity in partnership with the European Union, the United Nations and the ASSN
- A Stakeholders' Meeting on Lessons Learned in Kenyan Police Reforms, organised in Nairobi by the ASSN's Regional Hub for East Africa and the Great Lakes Region
- A Roundtable on Security Sector Expenditure Reviews, organised by the World Bank and the International Security Sector Advisory Team (ISSAT)
- Southern Africa Launches a Revised Strategic Plan on Defence and Security
- Papua New Guinea Develops a National Security Policy (NSP)
- Various updates about the Security and Justice Sector-related activities of individual members of the ASSN network, as well as the inauguration of the ASSN's new Interim Executive Committee and profiles of some of the ASSN's newest members