Kenya

"MEDIA AND ELECTIONS IN KENYA"

The 2007 Election Assistance Programme
In anticipation of the forthcoming presidential and legislative elections, in response to a request fr om the Government of Kenya, UNDP Kenya developed an election assistance programme which has two main goals:
• Independent assessment of the elections as free and fair.
• Increased voter turn-out.
The 2007 Election Assistance Programme is supported by many donors: Canada, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, The European Union, The United Kingdom, and the United States of America.

The programme aims to strengthen the overall capacity of the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK), civil society, media, and other agencies critical to the achievement of free and fair elections, and improvement of citizens' participation in the electoral process and understanding of their rights and duties.

Through support to voter education, media training, media campaigns and media monitoring; to the reduction of hate speech; to improved political accountability and to domestic observation processes, the programme contributes to the development of an open and accountable political system of governance and the conduct of a peaceful and informed electoral process by encouraging competitive issue-based politics, education and tolerance.

The Kenya Election Assistance Programme is guided by principles including harmonisation and complementarity with on-going programmes; local ownership and focus on long term capacity building; and accessibility, especially for the disabled, non-urban dwellers and the illiterate.In doing this the media should, as much as possible adhere to the codes of conduct for journalistic practice and guidelines for electoral coverage.Click to read the speech by Ambassador J .B Tumwa on the Media Monitoring report for 13 December 2007.

In partnership with the ECK and with the expert assistance of SOUTH Consulting, an extensive voter education initiative is underway that engages non government organisations throughout Kenya as local voter education facilitators.

The critical role of media is recognized in support to the Media Council of Kenya’s training program for journalists and correspondents; in the media monitoring processes being carried out by Strategic Public Relations and Research Limited and by Media Focus for Africa’s media campaign.

The work of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights in monitoring hate speech is also supported by the programme as is the work Coalition for Accountable Political Financing (CAPF) through the Centre for Governance and Democracy in encouraging greater political accountability.

The Kenya Election Domestic Observation Forum (KEDOF) has been established by faith based and civil society bodies to conduct a unified domestic observation exercise that looks to issues-based and thematic, well as polling-day observation of the elections.