Context
Kenya’s history has been marked by forced displacement due to violent conflicts or natural disasters.
600,000 people were internally displaced during the post-election violence in 2007/08. Since then, conflicts over scarce resources, large-scale development projects, environmental degradation and climate-change-related extreme weather events continue to force people from their homes. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre counted 394,000 internally displaced people (IDP) in 2020.
Civil wars, ethnic violence and extended drought periods in neighboring countries forced hundreds of thousands to seek refuge in Kenya over the past decades. The Kakuma and Dadaab camps currently host 440,000 refugees, with another 85,000 refugees in informal settlements in Nairobi and other urban centers.
Forced displacement often leads to conflicts within the communities or with governmental authorities over access to resources, basic services and livelihoods. This is particularly so when the displaced population is confined to economically weak regions or informal urban settlements.
Objective
Communities hosting displaced population in Kenya are solving their conflicts in a peaceful and con-structive manner with the support of the local governments.
Approach
Since 2014, the SIF programme of the Civil Peace Service has been working through and within a network of Kenyan civil society, peacebuilding and displaced people-lead organisations as well as gov-ernmental partners. Their aim is to prevent communal violence and foster respect for human rights and gender equality.
Our team of international and national Peacebuilding Advisors is supporting our partner organisations to initiate dialogue in communities affected by conflict and displacement. Media and arts are used to promote peaceful coexistence and survivors of violence and displacement receive psychosocial sup-port.