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Kenya on the international spotlight

[ Posted On: 2006-07-05 ]

After the African peer review process, what is next for Kenya?

Writes Jerry Okungu
NEPAD Kenya Communications Consultant
Banjul, the Gambia

As President Kibaki takes the stand this week to explain Kenya’s governance agenda to his peers; fellow African Heads of State at the Banjul Conference Centre in the Gambian capital, one thing will not be lost on leaders of the African continent; that the African Peer Review Mechanism will not be a personal review of President Mwai Kibaki and his colleague Paul Kagame of Rwanda. If they do so they will have lost the main point of the whole process.

The four pillars of the review process that formed the basis of assessing Ghana and now Kenya and Rwanda, have a wide mandate and cover vast spheres of life in any country in the world. When one talks of Democratic and Political Governance, we obviously think of elective political leadership, processes like running political parties, holding free and fair elections, practicing multiparty politics and being tolerant of divergent views in our societies without resorting to unorthodox methods of suppressing them.

Perhaps one of the biggest tests of democratic practice is for political leaders to be ready to practice competitive politics by selling their ideologies and their leadership beliefs to their electorate, and expect to be voted into office on the basis of the popularity of their ideas and visions.

Next to Political Governance is another high value basic necessity in a well governed society. This is Economic Governance which happens to be the number two pillar in the African Peer Review agenda. According to the AU declaration on the APRM, Economic Governance is an issue that has to be dealt with effectively if the African continent has to return to the path of progress and economic growth.

For decades African leaders have been accused by their counterparts in the developed world of economic mismanagement of their societies to the extent that the culture of corruption among successive regimes in the continent has in itself stifled any meaningful economic progress in the entire continent. Subsequently,

where democratic, political and economic governance have been lacking or minimal, we have seen degeneration in best practices within the private sector, the civil society and general poor delivery of essential services to the general citizenry of our societies.

When Kenya volunteered to be among the four countries in the world to be peer reviewed, it was obvious that Kenya wanted to come to terms with its short comings in social best practice failures and build on its successes if there would be any.

It was not lost on others that at the time of acceding to the process, Kenya had just emerged from a different era; the era of political intolerance and economic mismanagement that had badly affected the nation’s infrastructure, job opportunities and general wealth creation opportunities.

Because of the transition euphoria that had rented the air soon after the 2002 elections, Kenyans were dubbed the most hopeful people in the world in the early 2003.

Three years down the line since this desire to be reviewed was expressed, a lot of water has passed under the bridge. In those three years the transition government led by Mwai Kibaki had to deal not only with the APRM process and make sure it was executed as per the AU Charter but to at the same time handle with dignity, the unforeseen Constitution referendum that it eventually lost in November 2005; thanks to a squabbling coalition government that started disintegrating as soon as it formed its first cabinet.

When President Kibaki formed his government in 2003, he made a number of noble promises to the people of Kenya. Up on the agenda of the young coalition were the issues of a new constitution that Kenyan reformists had fought for for a decade, the creation of jobs for thousands of young graduates that were continually being churned out of our universities and other tertiary institutions, housing for the urban poor and working class, repairs of badly dilapidated transport infrastructure, rampant poverty, food security, universal free primary education and fundamental human rights reforms in the judicial system.

The Kenya peer review process took three distinct stages that culminated in this morning’s final lap. First, when the APRM Secretariat had set the agenda and designed the road map together with basic guidelines, the onus was on Kenya to undertake its self assessment that had to mandatorily involve all the stakeholders in society. As a result, an all embracing National Governing Council, chaired by a member of the Civil Society took responsibility of guiding the process with support from the private sector and sectoral technical experts while the government and Development Partners provided the required resources to finance the process.

Chief among the Development Partners were the UNDP, DfID and SIDA Sweden.

When finally the technical teams and convenors hit the road to gather the opinions of Kenyans on how they wanted to be governed in the areas of politics, economy, private sector best practices and social service delivery, they found a society that was highly candid and informed. It didn’t matter that a rural woman or man was interviewed. Their views were as informed as their urban counterparts. Their courage and forthrightness to constructively criticize their government and leaders was just amazing. They found their voices and stated clearly what was ailing their nation. They talked of poor political leadership and pointed fingers at their members of parliament.

They talked of corruption in high places in public service. They talked of the appalling standards of the judicial system. They talked of the ever widening gap between the rich and the poor and of rising levels of insecurity.

However, they never forgot to mention where the government had scored high marks.

They remembered that the Kibaki regime had successfully introduced universal free primary education resulting in the enrolment of three million children in school in 2003. They remembered that healthcare services had improved so much that drugs were available in all district hospitals.

They celebrated the impact the US $400 million that the Kibaki government had pumped in to the rural areas for development under the Constituency Development Fund program.

More importantly they recalled Kibaki’s style of leadership that had delegated a lot of powers to line ministries thereby enabling individual ministers to run their ministries in the best way they could. This authority also came with more freedom among cabinet ministers to disagree, express their divergent views and yet still work together.

This freedom of speech was extended to the rest of the Kenyan population and members of the press such that despite the fact that under Kibaki’s regime there will be mentions of journalists’ arrests and attacks on media houses, people will remember that these draw backs on press freedoms have never resulted in a reduction in press freedom or free speech. The net result can be seen in not a single journalist or opposition politician languishing in Kenyan jails due to their divergent views.

Soon after the self-assessment phase was ended and validated by over a thousand delegates at a national forum in Nairobi in late 2005, three things happened that put Kenya in international focus due to the very review process. One, it enabled South Africa’s most celebrated world couple , the Mandelas to be in Kenya and remain there for two weeks, perhaps the longest private foreign visit to be ever taken by Nelson Mandela since his release from Roben Island nearly two decades ago. Two, because of the high profile nature of Dr. Grace Machel Mandela who was leading the Kenyan external assessment process, Kenya all of a sudden found herself on the international spotlight for reasons that most world critics saw as a big test for its image locally and abroad while at the same time provided the international community to sample the Mandela enigma in a foreign land.

Upper most in the mind of Kenyan critics and pessimists was; why did Kenya accept to be reviewed at a time when everything seemed to go wrong at every turn?

Thirdly, the external reviewers arrived in Kenya at a time when the constitution referendum campaign that pitted the government against itself was at an all time high.

The government was divided down the middle with a number of high flying cabinet ministers campaigning against the version of the constitution document that the government had preferred.

It was a choice and a daunting task that could have worried any government in power.

It was obvious that the July – August 2005 self assessment, that was followed by the October Graca Machel team external evaluation would and were bound to be influenced by the political climate at the time. Any government would have preferred to postpone if not call off the exercise. However, in the words of Prof. Anyang’ Nyongo’ the APRM national focal point and Minister for Planning and National Development at the time, his view was that all this process of the African Peer Review Mechanism can only make sense if acceding countries accept the challenge to be reviewed at any time not only at the best of times. For a country to be seen as it is, makes more sense and provides better credibility of the process.

But perhaps what made the whole process move on smoothly was the obvious disinterest of President Kibaki and his government in interfering with, micromanaging or influencing the outcome.

They kept their role to that of inactive facilitator despite the fact that the then national focal point; Prof Anyang' Nyongo', then Planning and National Development Minister was one of the rebels in the cabinet against the new constitution.

As President Kibaki faces his peers and later the international press on issues raised by Kenyans during their self- assessment, the continent and indeed the whole world will be keenly listening to his responses on issues like ethnic and socio-economic diversity, ethnicity in political parties, high level corruption, the public’s lack of confidence and trust in their government, poor performance of Kenya’s parliamentarians, under representation of women in public service and positions of leadership, land ownership, the unending constitution debate and the place of the youth of Kenya in the government development agenda.

Finally President Kibaki’s peers will definitely want to hear what plans are in place to deal with gaps and weaknesses that might have arisen from the Panel of Eminent Persons’ Report. Equally important will be to hear how Kenya would finance the costs of carrying out multi-sectoral reforms that the panel and the Summit peers will recommend.

For the rest of Africa, and more so the twenty six countries that have acceded and are queuing up for the process, the lessons learnt in Kenya, Ghana and Rwanda should serve as pointers to valuable milestones to be emulated by the rest of the continent.

The mere fact that many African Heads of State have penned their signatures for review and are in Banjul this morning to interrogate their equals, is a good sign that this continent is committed to positive change for the betterment of their people.

This is a process that must involve all active stakeholders in society; more so the media that must play a unique role in not only dissemination the process but also act as a watch- dog to ensure the rules of the game are followed to the letter without being destructive to the process.

At the end of it all, what will matter most will be what happens to Kenya, Rwanda and Ghana after the review. The review will only make sense to nationals of these countries back home if it becomes the beginning of a long and tough journey to drastic positive reforms that will bring the continent back on the path of progress, economic development and a stable peaceful region. This is the path that the whole continent must travel together under the auspices of the APRM agenda.

Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard

Jerry Okungu is a freelance political analyst based in Nairobi, Kenya. Jerry also serves as a Board Director at The Kenya Broadcasting Corporation. Jerry has written extensively on issues affecting Kenya and the rest of Africa over the years. Other articles written by Jerry Okungu are available at this location

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