While Kenya has been making strong economic and governance progress, it remains vulnerable to challenges including political instability, security provision, and the impacts of climate change.
Its stability is important for the wider region, and is a precondition for both growth and development, underpinning international interests and investments in the country.
Insecurity and instability in Kenya – especially in the Northern and Coastal regions – manifests in election related violence, criminal violence, violent extremism, violence against women and girls (VAWG), and inter and intra-communal violence. Inequitable or insufficient security service provision compound these issues, along with low investment and limited growth and development.
The purpose of the Reducing Insecurity and Violent Extremism in Northern and Coastal Regions of Kenya programme (REINVENT) is to enhance Kenya’s capacity and capability to address weak community-police relations, VAWG, election-related violence, inter-communal conflict, and violent extremism.
The four aims of the programme are:
- Accountable and effective police (and other security agencies), which address community security, violent extremism and election security.
- Strengthened agency of women and girls in peace, safety and security.
- Intra- and inter-institutional commitment to address the root causes and drivers of conflict.
- Generation of knowledge and evidence surrounding the programming, which can be used to enhance community and institutional learning and adaptation.
We began work on REINVENT in 2019, leading a consortium which included the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and the Danish Demining Group (DDG). Funded by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the programme was due to run for an initial five years, however has now been extended to seven years. Our work on REINVENT is allowing us to build on the success of its predecessor programme, Jamii Thabiti – the Kenya Improving Community Security Programme, which we delivered between 2014 and 2019.
REINVENT’s approach combines national and regional work. We work in North-Eastern, Coastal, Upper-Eastern, Mt Kenya, Rift and Western regions which covers up to 16 focus counties, where we apply context-specific strategies taking into consideration the diversity, uniqueness and cross-cutting nature of security issues. Our work is delivered through our expert team of policing experts, gender and social inclusion advisors, peacebuilders, community engagement specialists, CVE practitioners, researchers and political advisors. They combine local knowledge and networks, working alongside a network of over 25 downstream partners, state and non-state actors, technical working groups and in collaboration with independent initiatives to ensure effective programme delivery.
REINVENT is also delivered through partnerships with the Government of Kenya, non-government organisations, civil society organisations and faith-based organisations. Respective Government ministries and autonomous state agencies engage with our Technical Leads and Regional Teams to deliver projects that contribute to the programme outcomes.
Results
Since 2019, and building upon the accomplishments and progress made by Jamii Thabiti, REINVENT has been delivering important and quantifiable impact at local, county, and national level. Across the first 5 years, REINVENT engaged 224,969 individuals directly, and countless more indirectly inspiring and empowering them to contribute to improving community safety and security.
- Communal violence has fallen by 24% across REINVENT target counties, and criminal violence has fallen by 11% since the start of the programme.
- Security agencies are working in collaboration with households to deliver effective security provision; 31% of households interviewed in our mid-term evaluation had been consulted by state and non-state security actors compared to 19% at baseline.
- 84 knowledge and research products on peace and security in Kenya have been generated and disseminated, influencing programme management-related decision making and policy direction in the peace and security space.
- The REINVENT-devised Komesha Coronaradio and artwork campaign reached 7 million people, sensitising them to the impact of COVID-19.
- REINVENT has influenced a more coordinated multi-stakeholder approach to community safety and security response through the County and Regional Security and Intelligence Committees (C/RSICs) in 16 target counties and 6 regions.
- REINVENT has been supporting the Kenyan government, the National Police Service, and non-state organisations to invest in and pioneer innovative prevention and response services to SGBV such as POLICARE centres which provide comprehensive, multi-sectoral, survivor-centred one-stop services including medical, legal and psychosocial support.
- Our support to election security and monitoring electoral gender-related violence – including to multi-agency election security management plans across multiple counties and training of 369 gender justice champions – helped bring about a peaceful election period and transition, when compared to previous elections.
- Nine county level gender sector working groups have been restructured to improve the coordination of SGBV prevention and response including provision of services by actors in the referral pathway.
- Women are better represented in security provision and decision making; 78% of community members reported that women were adequately involved in safety and security, compared to 49% at baseline.
- Our consortium supported the development and launch of the Komesha Dhuluma mobile app, which improves how SGBV cases are reported and followed up.
- Ongoing REINVENT work is improving overall service delivery at priority police stations. This has included supporting the adoption and implementation of reform priorities, which are embedding transparent data management practices. These priorities include the collection and analysis of crime data at the national level to inform policing decisions and the automation of functions at the police station level such as occurrence books and arms registers.
- Our consortium has delivered training on result-based planning in policing to 12 county commanders, 10 sub-county commanders and 21 station commanders in 12 counties and 21 sub-counties.
- In 2022, REINVENT supported the Kenyan police, electoral institutions and communities in facilitating the most peaceful democratic election in Kenya’s history – with zero deaths resulting from police brutality being recorded for the first time – and has since played an important role in coordinating ongoing police reform efforts, providing advice and support to the development and implementation of a new reform strategy.
- We’ve supported end of term evaluation of the National Police Service strategic plan 2018-2022 and provided technical support alongside other partners to the development of the new strategy 2023-2027 recently launched by Kenya’s President William Ruto. The new strategy focuses on promoting accountable, professional and people-centred service delivery by the police while integrating gender mainstreaming.
REINVENT’s climate work
REINVENT receives a tranche of ICF funding, helping to mitigate the risks of climate-related conflict across Kenya’s arid and semi-arid regions. Our work in this space has included research into the complex mutual connections between climate, conflict and gender:
- Supporting inter- and intra-community peace dialogue forums with small-scale farmers, ranch owners and pastoralists in Lakipia, Baringo and Samburu.
- Supporting inter-conservancy lessons learning and climate change stakeholder meetings in Lakipia, and
- Strengthening local administration and community structures on conflict early warning and early response in Samburu.
At a glance
Location
Kenya
Implementation period
2019–2026
Client
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, UK