Background

Whilst Kenya has made significant progress in containing violent extremism, the country continues to experience frequent incidents of terrorism, often focused in the Northern and Coastal regions bordering Somalia. Kenya also continues to face challenges from other forms of transnational organized crime, particularly smuggling, narcotics trafficking, and trade in illicit small arms and light weapons. In recent years, attacks by fundamentalist militants on security forces have increased, especially along the border with Somalia. A number of high-profile attacks have happened in both urban centres and rural areas.

The country is stepping up measures on its war against terror. Over the period there were positive advances, such as increased sharing of intelligence information which contributed to a reduction in attacks within the major towns. Though the National Counter Terrorism Strategy is still in draft, the government has rolled out County Action Plans to prevent and counter violent extremism in all the 47 counties, harmonizing national and county action to prevent and counter violent extremism (PCVE).

Project objectives 

The United Nations Development Programme in Kenya as part of the UN Strategy on Countering Violent Extremism implements the Preventing Violent Extremism Networks Together (PREVENT) Project in collaboration with National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC). It builds on the gains made under the Strengthening Community’s Resilience against Radicalization and Violent Extremism project, and advances components of the global UN strategy.

The PREVENT Project applies community systems, interreligious approaches and opinion leaders as agents of change and facilitate effective collaboration with law enforcement agencies in both preventative and restorative interventions. The goal of the project is to enhance lessons on building resilience of at-risk communities against extremist narratives that can lead to violent extremism.

The project objectives are as follows:

• Facilitate disengagement and reintegration through psycho-social support and rehabilitation of returnees
• Leverage conversations based on emerging research to promote social cohesion
• Facilitate development-led pathways at national and county levels to promote alternative livelihoods

PREVENT was developed under the previous Country Programme Document (CPD) 2014-2018). However, it is fully aligned to the current CPD (2018-2022). It contributes to CPD Outcome 2: By 2022, people in Kenya live in secure, peaceful, inclusive and cohesive society and CPD Output 2.3: Government has strengthened capacities for coordination and operationalization of gender and human rights responsive strategies and action plans on preventing violent extremism.