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This objective will have an outward-looking focus on Kenya’s general population, engaging a wide set of individuals and organisations in CVE and pro-peace campaigns.  CSOs have an important role to play in CVE, especially those that make up networks extending to rural communities. This action will bring together the NSA Coalition and other CSOs to work closely with NCIC and IEBC to mainstream CVE to all demographics. The targeted CSOs will have a successful track record of collaborating with local partners. Well-established CSOs will partner with nascent organisations for peer-to-peer support at various levels. The project will work with NCIC to help in accrediting CSOs operating in borderline counties and other hard-to-reach areas. The CSOs in partnership with NCIC will conduct sensitization forums towards countering electoral violence and political intolerance to selected targeted groups. In addition to CVE, the project will also craft pro-peace messages tailored to each region and conflict situation. This outreach will generate public conversations that will be captured and capitalised upon by grassroots NSAs, who will pursue pre-election activities such as roundtable debates, radio shows and filmed street interviews.

 

Activity 3.1    Support NCIC and their county-level partners to conduct communication strategy.

 

The project will support NCIC and partners in developing an integrated communication and media strategy to disseminate information on peace initiatives. The objective of this activity is to capacitate the NCIC communication department in developing communication campaigns and peacebuilding materials. In this action, the project will advise and train designated members of the communication department of NCIC to develop CVE materials and methodologies adapted to the needs of different demographics. Direct advisory support will be provided by the international civic and voter education expert engaged by the project. This support will culminate in the development of communication and civic education strategy that can then be tailored and adapted to the local realities. The action will also enable NCIC to train their local county-level partners to conduct communication campaigns.

 

Activity 3.2    Strengthen capacity for NCIC and IEBC staff and other peace, cohesion and electoral stakeholders via distance learning & training sessions on all the steps of the electoral cycle and via the online Master in Electoral Policy and Administration (MEPA) following the concept “INNOV Elections”.

 

INNOV-ELECTIONS has its foundation in the strategic partnership between the consortium member ECES and SSSA, which, since the signature of an MoU in January 2018, allowed numerous mid and senior career electoral professionals, practitioners, and other interested electoral stakeholders to enhance knowledge and increase conflict management/prevention capacities in the conduct of elections and in the adjudication of elections disputes. Innov-Elections is based on a hybrid approach to training delivery, whereby ECES, together with its partners, offers a flexible menu of training curricula while delivering remote solutions to mitigate the challenges imposed by the confinement and new working modes adopted by many institutions and organisations. While participants will follow specific modules of the MEPA master online, ECES experts will accompany students, providing them with personalized support in the form of coaching via WebEx Professional Training Distance Platform. The purposes of this tailored support are to deliver specific courses on electoral cycle management. Specifically, ECES will provide online training to the staff members of the selected electoral management bodies, for instance, on:

  • Training curriculum on Leadership and Quality Management Skills for Electoral Administrators (LEAD-Q)
  • LEAD training for electoral stakeholders highly contextualized
  • Prevention and mitigation of violence related to elections
  • Media monitoring and institutional communication
  • All aspects of an electoral cycle, from electoral systems to voter education, budgeting, voter registration, electoral operations, security, electoral dispute resolutions, the transmission of results etc.

The online MEPA is one of its kind, as there are currently no other advanced learning programmes focusing on electoral policy and administration in the world. It is based on the 2014 International-IDEA designed “Model Curriculum: Master of Electoral Policy and Administration” and on the concept of the “electoral cycle approach” as presented in the Methodological Guide of Electoral Assistance of the European Commission and the Handbook on Electoral Management Design of International-IDEA. MEPA is hosted on the e-learning platform developed by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).

The MEPA Model Curriculum is composed of the following topics divided into 19 modules:

  1. Elections and Voting as Instruments of Governance
  2. Electoral Legal and Regulatory Frameworks
  3. Electoral Management Bodies (EMBs)
  4. Electoral Systems and Managing Representation
  5. Understanding and Managing Boundary Delimitation
  6. Political Parties, Campaigns, and Political Finance
  7. Electoral Planning and Budgeting
  8. Voter Registration and Identification Systems
  9. Electoral Observation, Evaluation, and Validation
  10. Electoral Operations
  11. Marginalized Electorates and Special Voting Programs
  12. Elections and Technology
  13. Civic and Voter Education
  14. Media and Elections
  15. Electoral Integrity and Malpractice
  16. Electoral Security and Conflict Prevention
  17. Electoral Justice Systems
  18. Policy Advice and Electoral Reform
  19. Direct Democracy (optional)

 

Activity 3.3    Conduct Peace education for actors working on election-related programmes. 

In the first phase of this activity, the project will provide a peace and cohesion expert who will work with NCIC to develop a peace and cohesion handbook. The purpose of this document will be to act as a tool for national stakeholders promoting peace and cohesion during elections to allow them to better formulate and target their messages for more effective civic and voter education.  Once this phase is finalised, the approved handbook will be printed and the project will provide training on how to use the document to civil society and other actors providing voter education, including electoral assistance providers such as UNDP, IFES and local organizations.

 

Activity 3.4 Conduct national and regional symposia with partners and thought leaders on themes that enhance violence-free elections

Kenya has experienced violence around electoral processes since the early 90s. Scholars have observed that most of the identified causes of conflict and attendant violence emanate from unresolved grievances between and within groups and are further exacerbated by conflict triggers. The project shall organise national and regional symposia with the aim of promoting effective communication for conflict resolution. Citizens, politicians, government officials, civil society organizations, faith entities, and businesspeople among others will get the opportunity to address issues that may impede a peaceful election and proffer the actions required to address them. These platforms shall provide a space to discuss, ventilate, share experiences, advocate, and chart out the way forward towards a violence-free general election