Reducing Insecurity and Violent Extremism in
While Kenya has been making strong economic and governance progress in the 21st century, it remains vulnerable to challenges including security, politics, 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 region) manifests in the form of election related violence, criminal violence, violent extremism, violence against women and girls, and inter and intra comunal violence. Inequitable or insufficient security service provision compound these issues, along with low investment and limited growth/development.
The Reducing Insecurity and Violent Extremism in Northern and Coastal Regions of Kenya programme (REINVENT) aims to enhance Kenya’s capacity and capability to address election-related violence, inter-communal conflict, weak community-police relations, violence against women and girls (VAWG), 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 of us, the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and the Danish Demining Group (DDG). Funded by UKaid from the British people, the programme will run for five years. Our work on REINVENT allows us to build on the success of REINVENT’s 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 and Rift-Western regions and 18 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 team who have solid local knowledge and networks, working alongside local downstream partners, state and non-state actors, technical working groups and in collaboration with independent initiatives to ensure effective programme delivery.
REINVENT is 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 outputs. In 2020 we worked with 52 partners and delivered a total of 305 activities across 18 counties.
Kenya
2019-2024
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, UK
Results
Since 2019, and building upon the accomplishments and progress made by Jamii Thabiti, REINVENT as been delivering important and quantifiable impact at local, county and national level.
- Communal violence has fallen by 24% across REINVENT target counties, and criminal violence has fallen by 11%.
- 9 gender sector working groups across 9 counties have been restructured, to improve the coordination of SGBV services.
- The REINVENT-devised Komesha Corona radio and artwork campaign has reached 7 million people, sensitising them to the impact of COVID-19.
- 35 National Police Service Officers have been trained as peace monitors.
- 10 research projects on peace and security in Kenya have been commissioned and carried out.
- Our programme consortium supported the development and launch of the Komesha Dhuluma mobile app, which improves how SGBV cases are reported and tracked.
- 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.
- We have supported a review of the National Police Service (NPS) Election Security Management Plan. This plan supports election security objectives and strategy; professionalism standards, impartiality and neutrality; public order management; contact mechanisms and liaison between the electoral body and the police; and compliance with human rights issues.
