The Commonwealth and UN are jointly supporting the development of a groundbreaking training manual to help young people build peace and stability in Kenya.
The Commonwealth and UN are jointly supporting the development of a groundbreaking training manual to help young people build peace and stability in Kenya.
Kenya National Youth Policy
At a meeting in Nairobi, Government officials, youth organizations, peace and security practitioners and law makers examined youth, peace and security issues and discussed ways to promote and enhance the role of young people in conflict prevention and sustaining peace at a local level through the implementation of the Kenya National Youth Policy.
Opening the forum, Julius Korir, Principal Secretary, Ministry of ICT, Innovation and Youth Affairs, praised the training manual as a practical tool for youth leaders to drive change in peace and security, and bring innovation in how the government can partner with them to promote peaceful and cohesive societies.
He added that they can always count on the support of the Kenyan government.
Expected launch
The training manual is expected to be launched at the Commonwealth Youth Forum (CYF), which is taking place before CHOGM 2020.
The manual is a follow-up of the CHOGM 2018 mandate on country level implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2250 - a thematic resolution that deals with the topic of youth from an international peace and security perspective.
Anna Sherburn, Deputy Head, CVE Unit said: "Violent extremism represents a serious threat to peace and security, shared values and aspirations, social harmony and economic and social development.
"Building peace and security requires the broadest possible alliances. Therefore, counter-terrorism policy and youth policy are essential partners in achieving peace.
"This training manual will help ensure that young people within government, civil society, law makers are all working together to ensure our youth policies build peace and security and our security policies really incorporate the expertise of young people.”
Potential collaborations
Closing the workshop, the Honorable Speaker of the Nairobi County Government, Beatrice Elachi said: "This is the first multi-stakeholder intervention that the county has received addressing root causes of violence and giving tangible frameworks to systematically address this challenges."
She went on to praise the efforts of the Commonwealth, the UN-Systems and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in showing the potential of collaboration between development partners and local governments.
The training module is anticipated to be rolled out in other counties of Kenya with potential collaborations for good practice sharing with other Commonwealth countries.
