 David, Joel, Kennedy, I'm not sure where you are, and I know Michelle is here. Let's get started. I know there's an event at USIP at 2 o'clock with Salva Kear that I think a number of people here are trying to get to, so we want to end a little before 2 to give people time to get over there, and we need to clear out of this room pretty promptly before 2. So let's bring the panel up here. Well, listen, I just want to say a really big thanks to this morning's panel. I think those were two sets of really excellent in-depth discussions with people who are really immersed in these issues, and really were able to give a level of texture in detail to these big challenges, just remarkable. And I want to thank once again our panelists really for coming so far to spend today with us. Really, I can't thank you enough. It's been extremely helpful. And I do want to say, I admitted this morning to say thanks to Joel Barken who did a lot of arm twisting on this, I think, and calling in personal favors to get such a high-quality panel put together. So thanks again. Let's move to this panel where we're talking about US engagement on Kenya in the run-up to the referendum and now moving forward. And we're delighted to have with us today Michelle Gavin, who's a special assistant to the president and senior director for African Affairs at the NSC, National Security Council. Michelle is a long-time Africanist, was engaged with probably one of our most active senators, Senator Feingold, who active on Africa on the hill for many years. Very keen interest in Kenya as well. US engagement, I think in this last period, has been proactive, energetic, and I think really reflects US interests in Kenya, which are, in some ways, more mature and probably more broad than they are in much of Africa, I think. I think it also reflects the personal interests of President Barack Obama, partly it has to do with his family tree, but I think equally, probably by a sense of optimism about Kenya, optimism and expectation. I think you really can't spend time in Kenya without being struck by the incredible political energy, the wealth of thoughtful, forward-thinking intellectuals and analysts. We've had a great sampling of that here today. And who have been really voices over decades now for political reform, political openness, and kind of countervailing voices within Kenyan society. So we heard this morning, I think, a lot about the challenges ahead. And while there are a lot of celebration around the referendum, which is well-warranted celebration given that just two years ago, Kenya was going through such a deep and vituperative crisis, but a lot of challenges ahead. And while the referendum, there are certain lessons we can draw from that, the stakes will be much higher, the issues much more complex in the coming national election. And then again, the Constitution addressed, which is intended to address some very specific political problems within Kenya that will face challenges, logistic and political of its own, with strong vested interests still at play and so forth. So I'm going to turn to Michelle first to talk about U.S. engagement at this time. Michelle has been at the center of really mobilizing this pretty remarkable U.S. commitment to seeing this Constitution through, to keeping Kenya really high on the radar screen, despite major crises going on in Somalia next door in Sudan and then in the global world. To have President Obama, Vice President Biden, Secretary Clinton so very engaged on Kenya during this time is pretty remarkable. And I think seeing the energy that went behind this Constitution, you couldn't help being a bit enthusiastic about it. And I think one of the questions for U.S. policy is, in some ways, were we perhaps too enthusiastic in our support and endorsement for this Constitution? I think there's some, you know, it's a fine line, I think, between supporting a process versus kind of the perception, at least, that we were coming down one way or the other in terms of the outcome. But I'm sure Michelle has heard that question before and hope we can address that. So Michelle, I'm going to turn to you for thoughts on the process so far and U.S. engagement moving forward. Then we'll turn briefly to our panelists for very quick remarks and then open up the floor for discussion. Thanks. And it's a pleasure to be joining you all the day. I'm sorry that I didn't have the benefit of hearing from the panel earlier because I've heard nothing but great things about it. It sounds like it's been a very insightful session thus far. So with that sort of disadvantage in injecting myself into an ongoing conversation, I'll be quite brief because what's interesting is always the give and take. But in terms of how this administration has looked at Kenya since taking office and when the Obama administration took office, we were keenly aware of the stakes in Kenya, the memories of early 2008 is still very, very vivid for the administration and a sense of urgency around not allowing the situation to deteriorate in the way that we saw before and a real fear that another round of violence like that would be that much more difficult for Kenya to pull itself back from the brink. So there was a sense of urgency and worry about return to crisis. But I would say that there was also a very keen sense of potential. You know, having seen what Kenyans themselves were able to do to pull the country back from the brink, the mobilization and coordination and cohesion that we saw in civil society and parts of the Kenyan private sector and the kind of leadership there combined with some interesting indicators of generational change in the Kenyan political system. Also, I think for a lot of us gave a sense of there's opportunity here. There's some important and interesting Kenyan partners to work with moving forward. And so with that kind of immediate sense of where the dynamics were in Kenya and then, of course, the set of reasons that every U.S. administration has had to care about Kenya, the fact that it's been historically one of our strongest partners on the continent and on a wealth of critical issues surrounding regional security, humanitarian access for the region writ large, Kenya has been an absolutely essential partner and certainly the depth of our relationship with Kenya is almost unique on the continent. The scope of ties, the sheer number of Kenyan students who study in the U.S., the Robust Peace Corps program, this is a long standing relationship that we value for multiple reasons. And so when we kind of looked at Sub-Saharan Africa at the very beginning, you had your very obvious hotspots and crisis points, Sudan, Somalia, certainly, and others, but you also had these two regionally essential states on either side of the continent, Nigeria and Kenya, where you had seen recently some alarming trajectories and where we believed we needed to focus a great deal of attention right from the start. We also had some interesting assets to bring to bear in trying to ensure that we were giving it all we've got to strengthen the U.S.-Kenyan relationship and, in fact, create conditions conducive to greater Kenyan stability. And the most obvious asset being, of course, the President of the United States, whose knowledge of Kenya is quite considerable and extensive, whose interest is keen. I can assure you that the questions I got from day one on Kenya coming from the West Wing were tough questions and obviously extraordinarily well-informed, and he does have a unique degree of influence, perhaps, or soft power on the continent, writ large, and certainly, I think, in Kenya. So that's a tremendous asset, but I would also note there's a great asset in having an Assistant Secretary of State in Johnny Carson, who's a former U.S. Ambassador to Kenya, and who was there during a critical time, certainly in Kenya's political development, so in addition to caring deeply about Kenya, loving it, loving its people, believing in its potential, he also had relationships with an awful lot of key players that certainly think helped facilitate our diplomatic engagement, obviously, working with Ambassador Ranneberger and the team on the ground. So all of this sort of backdrop is to say that we came in thinking, okay, we cannot be sort of asleep at the switch on Kenya just because the immediate crisis passed. We actually should be surging forward in trying to engage, and particularly to promote the reform agenda that was, you know, that fourth basket of issues identified by Kofi Annan and his team in trying to facilitate it into the crisis, and so trying to find ways to push forward on reform quite robustly was kind of the mantra from the start, and we did make a big push. There were some early visits, some early strong public messages where the message that we were sending to Kenyan leadership was, look, there's no business as usual with those who might be working to obstruct the reform agenda. The stakes are far too high. We all saw the nature of those stakes during the crisis, and so some very strong signals at the leadership level. But in parallel to that was an effort to reach out and strengthen and support those positive factors that we saw, those sources of tremendous potential. So some very robust democracy and governance programming to the tune of over 60 million dollars, which in the context of Sub-Saharan Africa, Kenya does extremely well. And then also a series of visits over the course of the first year and a half of this administration where you had Secretary Clinton's engagement last summer, the summer of 2009, and a key element of that was not just the standard kind of bilateral meetings with Kenyan leadership, but the town hall event that she did at the University of Nairobi, reaching out, intended to be speaking directly with, engaging with, and getting ideas from Kenyan civil society, Kenyan civil society and crucially younger Kenyans. And then Vice President Biden traveling this past summer doing a similar event where his messages were very directly aimed at Kenyan citizens, not necessarily specific to Kenyan political leaders. We also had, you know, deployed the president's voice in different ways. Certainly he's engaged with his counterparts in the Kenyan government, but he is also, for example, did an exclusive interview with Kenyan broadcasting back in June in an effort to try and reach again directly to the Kenyan people. And so it's true that we have come in for some criticism, a sense that our voices have been perhaps too loud in supporting the reform agenda, but I think that a close look at where we've been over the course of the last 18 months has made it clear that what our strategy and our effort has never been about trying to promote the reform agenda simply because we believe it's the right thing to do. It's been much more focused on trying to be supportive of Kenyan civil society and those poll factors from within Kenya that are kind of pulling leadership along in advancing that agenda and moving forward. And this is, it's pretty clear in all the public statements and it's very clearly been part of our approach. Certainly the 45 million dollar Yes Youth Can initiative that was launched last I think December is a tremendously important part of that with this idea that the more that you empower young Kenyans to engage civically to be a part of the system and to be able to articulate clearly where it is they want their country to go the more you're going to see Kenya driving toward a place where it's going to be sustainably stable and have better chances for even more prosperity and growth in the years ahead. The last thing I would just say is that while I do I do feel very good that we've we've given it a lot we've given it a lot of effort to try and encourage the reform agenda in Kenya we are and we were thrilled to see a largely peaceful referendum and very thrilled to see that the aftermath remained peaceful. We're not under any impression that kind of this work is done and sort of okay we can check Kenya off the list of things that we need to do far far from and it's very clear and this high level engagement has helped make it very clear to senior officials in the U.S. government that there there's a tremendous amount of work to be done. I think for the vice president when he was engaging with the reform caucus of parliamentarians this past summer in Nairobi for him to hear from them kind of just how ambitious it would be to be moving out on implementing legislation for a new constitution I think helped give us a real flavor of how much work there is to be done and how important it'll be not to sort of let the sense of exhaustion and relief that I would imagine Kenyan civil society leaders must have felt in the wake of a peaceful referendum not to let that kind of take hold and let momentum sort of dissipate and find ourselves less engaged or certainly Kenyan civil society less prepared for the very very difficult days to come. So when I think of all the kind of overused policymaker metaphors that are bandied about constantly the sort of shorthand in my mind to think about this is that it's not that we believe you know Kenya's turned a corner here it's more about sort of a door that didn't close right they didn't close the door to be able to move forward and really realize the tremendous potential of a truly amazing country but there's a lot of work yet to be done and so I want to make sure that other people have a chance to speak and there's a chance for some exchange. Great thank you so much Michelle we're going to turn to our respondents on the panel I won't go into introducing you again since you've already spoken at some point today but first David and Dee who I think will talk a little bit about the political engagement and perhaps some of the technical issues going forward in that complicated process of devolution but we'll see what he has to say. We have Kennedy Massime from ELOG who will talk I think about US engagement in civil society and particularly perhaps with a view to the forthcoming elections and then Joel Barkin a senior associate here at CSIS I think is going to talk a little bit about democracy promotion and how it's evolved over time in Kenya how Kenya has changed how our approach needs to change and what that might say about democracy promotion or whatever you want to call it in Africa more broadly. So David let's turn to you and I've asked our panelists to keep it very brief it is so cold up here that we all want to get down anyway next time we'll have blankets up here David unfortunately I mean I this is a subject which I confess I'm not really as comfortable or at least have a strong advantage point as perhaps what I was speaking about earlier so I think my comments are going to be very much in a manner of really an observer perspective I think just reflecting on a couple of things one is that I think one of the things I think about I mean I'm looking back now into the benefit of hindsight is that if you look at the historical engagement of countries like the US with African countries and in particular developing countries in general is historical was very much around economic and security economic development and security and very state-centric of course and engagement on democracy and governance is very recent only going back to the early 90s certainly in our case and one cannot help and wonder whether things might have been different if in fact development and democracy and governance had been at the center of the engagement from from the beginning I think it's not really the fact that you know it reflects also the the sort of order of things at the time that I think our country has also made the mistake of focusing on economic development at the expense of political development and it's proving quite clearly that you know you can't really in Africa certainly we could really have have gone the asian route that political development is perhaps much more fundamental as a precursor to economic development having said that I think the US has acquitted the self very well in terms of engaging on democracy in governance and engaging civil society very strong support very strategic interventions throughout the 90s I think they are programs I think Joel and I can have sort of been involved with the parliamentary strengthening program which is financed by USAID and executed by SUNY. I'm particularly proud of that because it actually took over something which I had started in the other 90s and it's still economic affairs and it sort of just scaled it up. The NDI support which was being talked about here a bit earlier so that how that's going to talk about that and various other things besides that kind of programmatic support I think the other thing which has been very important is bold and sometimes this is eviction very risky but bold sort of this is diplomatic action example which comes to mind immediately was the decision to sort of deny and publicly publicize denying visas to certain high-ranking officials recently who are seen to be and it was stated for obstructing reform we saw shortly thereafter the pipeline of corruption prosecutions which had sort of stalled open up very quickly and you saw a lot of cases going to court and I'm told by people in that field that that had to do with the the attorney general having been on that list of of people and I sort of did and I think that that particular action I believe has acted as a deterrent to some of the people who would have been more obstructive of the constitutional sort of reform making process it took the wind out of a lot of people's sales and so those sort of actions are risky but I think they have to be taken I think on the on the balance that it's actually been quite strong so the the question of again you know supporting the process versus endorsing the product is is I think one which required working a very fine line I think on the whole I think except for people who wanted to politicize it it was not such a big issue I think the messaging of what what the US was supporting was quite clear but of course you know the problem with political propaganda I mean here there everywhere it's very difficult to to to actually distinguish sort of counteracted people who deliberately distort things very skillfully. One thing I want to the most point about going forward in terms of is in terms of risks and issues to watch about I think in in to the historically that if you look at the way they support quite frankly or for for democracy governance and particular strategy has evolved initially and the US as well as a lot of other developed partners in a sense a lot of the support that went to civil society was in fact more of an accident it was a consequence of mediatorieting relationships with the with the government so they had programmed money the government was not cooperating as a partner and a lot of the support ended up in civil society it was not really programmed for civil society it was the fact that it was an alternative to working with government because historically a lot of the institutions work with government and what we saw in in 2003 when there was a big euphoria that you had a new government reformist government you saw a shift of focus again back to government there was a shift also not just of focus but also of resources and a lot of that was one of the things that really took the wind out of civil society sales and in fact it did also contribute to the even as the environment deteriorated she was at the the the the the the the support very much the the the the the people like the US and other one are able to sort of shift shift back the focus so that when it came to to election you still in fact I just to give an illustration I think even the debate of the way to monitor the 2007 election there are people who had felt that there was no need for international monitors monitoring of the 2000 election said oh Kenya's really had good track record of elections this is not whatever let's just focus on working with government on development on health k i and all those things so I think that that's something I think which is important to guard against that still that kind of euphoria yes that may be again I think the lesson from that is that really what the real the real challenge at this point in time I think more than any other time is in terms of implementation is that it's it's going to it's it's deepening it's actually deepening civil society and I think this is a time now to begin to think very fundamentally about sustainability of civil society it's I was saying it's been the kind of support you seen has been very episodic and it's actually a lot of time you see it's been driven by sort of it depends very much on how government is behaving when government is behaving well you find that the the development part so I think what needs to maintain that two track process yes engaging government and doing but also looking at how to sustain and sustain up in the sort of looking at questions of of deepening and strengthening and sustaining civil civil society particularly to build the capability to drive the implementation process and also to institutionalize to institutionalize just you know civic sort of vigilance and participation citizen participation in in in the governance of the country so it's a tall order but I think you know in for a penny in for in for the sort of for for the whole whole let me let me stop great thank you David let's turn to Kennedy who I think will also speak a bit a bit to civil society thank you very much perhaps I will begin by narrating a story about two events I attended in Nairobi in the past two or three years I think the first one was the the elections and the announcement of the American elections and the the funny thing about them is that you are invited to to report at five in the morning it's not always that you attend meetings at five so we went there and at the american embassy there were a lot of us from top government ministers to civil society everybody they know they didn't know how to mobilize the Kenyan society I think they have a good list we were there you could touch the emotions people are I mean crammed around the screens their eyes misting most of them were crying and it was a big event the next one was a few or two years later and I believe Richard is not going to like this it was now the British election and the subsequent announcement so we were there we also reported at five and I mean there was no connection actually we considered more on the tea and the drinks than the actual action actually people were turning their back to the screen and it was going and it was like there was no connection this just to illustrate the Kenyan fascinations and expectations of the united states in Africa in the excellent setup you know you can report your father to the older brother and you can do it directly and they are supposed to intervene on your behalf increasingly it's not the older brother but the more successful brother now the power dynamics have changed not age anymore but success which goes with either education or wealth I've attended the briefing session with the American numbers other and it's more or less the same setup when we go they are civil society we are reporting to the you know the uncle with a lot of expectations on that the father could be the government and how they are treating us and everything the center where I work we have been recipients of us id you know funds since I joined which was around 2000 2001 I've seen the the evolution of the nature of funding initially we used to get the money directly through the democracy and governance program at some point I think there's a bit of an outsourcing now where we access the money through SUNY or Park Kenya civil society strengthening program like let me just say it sometimes the amounts change initially it was good the ones were okay then it has dipped that they are in smaller portions and also it like you said following the 2003 elections though there was that shift to government we had this government programs the governance and justice just in a law program where a lot of money went and it was like civil society has done its work and has outlived its usefulness we had also some other bigger programs like the public financial reform you know strategy where a lot of money was put on the government and it was so that the government will behave and things will be okay so I want I just want to reiterate what David Diaz said that there's the demand side of things and there's the supply side of things there's always needs to keep a balance if you over support the other side like this supply side of things things don't work most of those programs eventually stall and they don't yield the results intended result so I think there's good way there's a there's a need to balance that Kenya has been reforming gradually people always say it's been evolutionary I think this is the first time that there's a bit of a revolution though it is a revolution during peacetime like some people say there's a lot that needs to be undertaken in terms of governance reforms perhaps we just go through the list that I say I gave in the morning in terms of the work that civil society needs to do there's civic and voter education it's a fascinating public participation I can even talk of publics you can talk of I mean educating people on how to act as members of political parties you can educate county people on how to interact with their new structures you can educate women or now to take advantage of you know some of those affirmative actions or the advantages that they have received through the constitution etc so it's a lot of work you can support legislative and institutional and administrative reforms and when we talk of legislative at least the center I work for we worked on a number of laws back in the 90s early 2000 we supported through a member through a private member the law that created the parliamentary service commission and also the law that the political parties act the political parties act for instance took us about eight years there's a lot of work a lot of research a lot of pushing the the law is as it is now is not even perfect it takes a lot of time a lot of resources a lot of energy to to to push for a law and get it right but the time you it is like between the law and reality it's a lot of work it is a stream where we are supposed to do people's talk of 49 because of the the listing is it the sixth or fifth schedule the 49th item is actually any it says any other law that that is the constitution the the listing is not 49 they could be less because some of them can be done one but if you look at the body of the constitution it's also anticipates a number of laws when the constitution says that there will be freedom of you know information it requires a lot to give to to give it effect so it's a lot of work that needs to go into operationalizing that constitution and the civil society will need support there are aspects of a conflict resolution a technical assistance capacity building all this requires to be done by civil society and it will take a lot of resources we appreciate the assistance that the US through USID and these other agencies have been giving civil society the only thing is that I mean it's good but how is it what is structured there's a difference between funding development and by development development civil society where you know you go build schools sink balls it's very direct and you can program it and say you will sink balls I mean 20 balls in two years and you you you can determine what time it takes to do a ball and how to do it but governance political and legislative reforms are different ballgame all together it's in my experience not amenable to project you know funding or arrangements where you say and you have to write it up front that will be doing abcd for three years it will cost this money it doesn't work like that in reality so in terms of project funding and it's really in the context of the new constitution I think we should think I mean deeply about how we structure funding so that it's relevant and it does not actually undermine the work that it's intended to do so what I can say that funding is good we can feel the weight of the American you know funding is building now following the promulgation of the new constitution our only worry is that it will be structured properly so that you can achieve impact thank you thank you let's turn to Joel and if David and Kennedy or David you could turn off your mic I'll try to be relatively succinct but I want to do so in the context of the whole enterprise of democratization and democracy promotion generally the United States has been involved in democracy promotion since the mid 1980s beginning in Latin America in Africa it's essentially an exercise that began in the early 90s and Kenya has been a focus of it more or less on a sustained basis therefore on for almost 18 years what have we learned because while the referendum and the run-up to it and a successful conclusion certainly makes us all feel very warm inside and rightfully so nonetheless our interventions on behalf of the democratization process in Kenya have not always been so sophisticated and sustained and there are some broader takeaways to to pay attention to the first of all is that it's a long process it's taken 20 years it's two steps forward and in some cases particularly in the early stages of the struggle arguably one and three quarters steps back it's torturous and and it's a struggle and let's make no bones about it it's a political struggle between those who want to retain power and those who want to come into power to some extent for their obviously for their own interests but also a reform coalition which is not always composed only of reformers there are strange bedfellows let's put it this way along the way and it leads to very mixed results the United States entered this in the early 90s very forcefully to drive the first multi-party election in Kenya and the first lesson quite obviously was that the employment of conditionality and the assistance to civil society does not necessarily lead to an alternation of government that occurred in 2002 when then as now there were tremendously high expectations that the corner had be turned and i think it was Michelle you said the door was really opened as opposed to the the corner had been turned and we also shifted years at that point in time from simply assistance for free and fair elections to the building of institutions of countervailing power and here's where i think the long-term effort really needs to focus on it's below the radar screen it often gets trumped by security interests we have hung in there very well in Kenya the the SUNY program on the legislature has been mentioned as i think in many ways a an amazing case study of what can be accomplished if funding matched with a very high level of expertise that the U.S. deploys in the field is maintained for a sustained period of time it's now 12 years it began in 1998 it's going to continue to 2014 but that kind of a cycle of a project will have crossed three administrations and multiple ambassadors and the biggest risk in my mind is that the institutional memory gets frayed along the way and when you have a turnover and personnel when the baton is passed it's not always passed as well as it should be so where do i come down on this and where do we go from here to some extent to continue what we've been doing because it has worked but to keep in mind that quite obviously the realities as we've heard today are different than they were even a before the referendum and that there's going to be a change in administration in Kenya in in in 2012 and as David indeed i thought laid out very well the structure of politics has changed fundamentally so simply doing more of the same is not necessarily the answer and we can't go to sleep at the switch because if i'm allowed a personal comment i was an observer to the 2007 election and i felt we had gone asleep at the switch and we committed the the mistake that kenyon de mentioned this morning we focused on personalities on the electoral commission and not not institution so we have to keep our eye on the institutional ball even though it isn't very sexy that in turn means that the whole us aid embassy relationship and former ambassador bellamy is here at the back of the room he knows this well this has to be a very comfortable relationship and this in turn means that in terms of who we send out to the field particularly at the us aid level where my concerns are are greatest that they really match and our people who can work with the the embassy and and that we have people who really want to invest in learning what has come before in order to move forward focus on the institutional ball that means the legislative program although that's beginning to phase out and rightly so because the issue of sustainability has to be addressed do we simply do more of the same because it's worked or at one point what time do you when do you go home or shift years what about civil society um the last year i've been conducting a study for the national endowment for democracy on recipients of of democracy assistance and the telling figure is globally what uh kennedy has reported this morning and that is overwhelmingly civil society is dependent on external funding maybe it's time we start re-examining this demanding matching grants even though it was might be small say at 10 percent because to the extent that which the donors in the u.s in particular can support democratization efforts they must have viable partners and one demonstration of viable partners are those groups that can raise at least some measure of their own resources as to those who are just in effect begging i'd like to see a continuation of of the immediate past efforts in 2012 the pvt vote the mapping you and i have talked about this before i mean i it's it's why did it take so long for us to do this why not an early election so i guess i would i would stop there we can congratulate ourselves but but we should be careful in in in letting it go at that i i believe that we can still do better and that's going to require some some continuing commitment both in the aerobic ad here great thanks very much to the panel well let's open up for questions and comments from the floor i wonder if any of our kenyan participants from this morning might like to uh like like to add anything uh furos on the judiciary the police which is a particular interest of ours um furos our watches the mic is coming without in any way reducing the support to the civil society and focus that you have some attention to the need to look at political parties strengthening there what is what has to do we have to pay attention to how does how do political parties recruit their their lower leadership second third tier leadership etc and what we are seeing is a perpetuation of the the mentors are these the people you have rejected as a focus of of uh interaction that's why the large focus on civil society but if you leave them alone they'll recruit people who look like them thank you should we take a couple yeah we're talking of sustainability from the point of view of work in kenya but we need sustainability from the u.s side when smith hamston was there the what the u.s position did was to give legitimacy to reform the ambassador who followed him disengaged leaving my uh an open field these these uh hard in thank you furos questions comments this is your chance to john i was implying a second by the apple but i there's i can remember a very stark time and came when i was in kenya following joel when the concerns about democracy and concerns about security came in direct conflict with each other and those have not diminished i'm a democracy which i'm not a security person but i'm interested in how the u.s is balancing their concern for security and thinking about the samali threat and all that with this ongoing concern for democracy it's a classic struggle which took i think something of a hit in the in the post-911 uh phase when um where we may be moving away from that but um it is a balance that always has to be struck more questions here yes david brown i'm a master student at uh question about the decision last year to revoke travel visas from government officials is that a i was wondering michelle maybe you could talk about the decision to use that strategy and for any of you the sustainability of that tool going forward um it seems like you think it was successful um but we run too great a risk of pushing partners away and again uh it gets a little bit to the question of this individuals versus institutions and and these folks you know what was the process by which it was determined these particular folks i don't know if you you're you're able to answer that but i think uh versus others because there was a there's plenty to choose from uh and and what was what was the process to that singled it out wasn't an american process or was it a kenyan process and i think we we run that too now in the with the icc and and questions around that perhaps you want to uh mention something around that as well um so let's turn back to the oh we got one more over here we'll take them all and um yeah um it's a comment on uh individual travel bonds that i want to make in the light of the comment that has been made as a kenyan who was um in kenya that particular time the bonds were announced um i really think that that was a very legitimate intervention very legitimate intervention by the hand its own weaknesses the focus was on individuals without focusing also on their families right um in the sense that's you did not complete the sake and for it to have good impact we really insist and this is the message we've been really speaking hard about you must have a focus on their own families spouses and children were in us standing here that's the only way of weakening their sense of impunity that's the way of undermining their efforts to frustrate reforms at home and only when you do that that's when you they become sensitive to the things that they do at home going back to the question of um continuity that feroz has talked about i think there's need to emphasize the significance of having for lack of better word of having ambassadors who fully understand kenya and who are very committed to imbending the discourse of reforms at every level um he's talked about disengagement at some some some particular time and others but we need that consistency we need that consistency for one reason that governments are very sensitive to how you engage and if you come with silence diplomacy and bedroom i mean and the dining diplomacy that's not the language in people who prefer impunity understand the best so if there is going to be any transition and change in kenya let that one be a transition that will lead to getting someone who fully understands kenya someone who is going to play a critical role in trying to ensure that reforms are fully implemented we are moving towards a very difficult phase of implementing the constitution this is the most hard part of the reform building agenda in kenya now and the frustrations will come at different levels and getting someone who understands it and making sure that the government understands that it's under watch and various individuals are under watch is very critical but my final point is i think this idea of saying let's disconnect individuals from institutions is an issue that we need to pay much more attention very seriously because there is no significant difference between the agency and the structure under some circumstances and therefore getting to know that the actors could be as band as i mean can make institutions but is also important so let's try to see how we can balance the two i have a very quick question regarding the inability of civil society to gather funds domestically independent of foreign funders i was wondering if you could speak a little bit about the reasons behind that inability or lack of desire to gather funds on their own and the types of support and or sanctions or or force that you would use on society to make them gather funds on their own thank you from from stick to carrot very briefly to emphasize the importance of assistance to the electoral process kenya faces two massive challenges simultaneously and they are of course related implementation of the constitution on the one hand and preparing hopefully for a successful election as early as august 2012 on the other and these have to happen simultaneously and the sequencing of that's going to be very challenging as well one of the things that came out of the kreger report was the importance of sustaining all assistance to the electoral process through the election cycle i'm not just talking about support for alogan kennedy but support for the election commission and others how important that is because historically kenya suffered from feast and famine because we can use this time to respond and kind of wrap up as well why don't we start with you and we'll come back to you at the end for any final thoughts okay well thank you that was a a good mix of good questions and good advice which i'm happy to take on board and some some excellent points i guess just trying to work through some of these some of these issues i certainly take the point on the importance of political parties and you know for for i think for kenya you've kind of realized this potential that everyone talks about when one has to see a change in that the nature of political parties in in kenya they're sort of ever right now they're kind of these amorphous ever-shifting entities that have unfortunately historically and and still i think it's fair to say more to do with sort of identity politics than with political platforms i do so i hear what you're saying i i do think that particularly engaging with young people is a big part of getting at that issue that that's going to that's not something that's going to change immediately it you have to kind of create a different politics to have political party structures that reflect it and creating a different politics is a kenyan enterprise it's not a us enterprise for kenyans but we certainly can try and be supportive in in ways that are effective and not naive about the nature of political party structures so i think it's a it's a great point also on kind of the waxing and waning of us policy and attention to some of these issues and the importance of getting the right people on the ground and joel spoke to the importance of the admission director obviously the importance of having strong ambassadors ambassador bellamy it's just great to see you you know the us political system is what it is and and so if they're changing administration priorities from one to another then it's the it's the job of an ambassador to reflect the the priorities of of the president and the administration so there there are always going to be some constraints on our consistency at large but i do think that there isn't a whole lot of disagreement about kenya's importance i don't think anyone there there's nothing partisan about saying that kenya's a tremendously important partner to the us and and i do think there's a widespread consensus on how critical reform is in the kenyan political system to kenya's stability so i you know i'm hopeful that moving forward you know beyond the days of of the administration that i work for and out you know into the the kind of out years that we would have that but i just would point out there always there are always constraints i certainly think it's not going to change anytime soon that this is seen as an incredibly important and sensitive post and one where we we need to be putting excellent personnel and ensuring that they work together effectively tensions between democracy and security and how to reconcile them well that's sort of the subject i think for if not another panel another kind of week-long symposium but it's a yes i do think these tensions sometimes manifest themselves in kenya just as they do here uh i also think that it's it's very clear to us uh within the administration that we're not uh our our investment in having a strong partner on security issues in kenya is utterly lost if the the country finds itself uh in conflict and uh and uh you know these are the kinds of very very stark uh potentialities that the people were focused on in during that post-election violence so in some ways that lesson has helped guide our thinking that we need to be focused on the long term here you you have a much stronger partner in addressing critical security issues if you have a one that's not kind of shaky at its very foundations and so i you know fundamentally and in the long term i don't think these things are intention in in any way i think they're um they're very much complementary you know in terms of specific issues where sometimes you might have a security imperative that uh domestically we might have a security imperative that might lead us down one track and a set of concerns around civil liberties that might be intention with that you know i think that happens in other societies as well and it's our job to keep our eye on the ball i understand that these are ultimately decisions that will be managed by by kenyans but to keep that focus on the importance of having a strong and resilient partner and that means uh making sure that we get the governance piece right uh on visa bans um and targeted targeted sorts of sanctions uh you know i'm not going to kind of speak to that the kind of information that necessarily informs some of the specific decisions uh because it's not appropriate here but what i would say is that um uh it was very important i think from the get-go uh to make plane that this message we were sending no business as usual um was not purely a rhetorical message uh there was a sense that there was perhaps too much comfort in some circles that crisis had passed and we can all sort of go back to the same kinds of relationships um that one had seen before and so i think that that was an important part of sending that signal but what i would say about that kind of tool and deploying that kind of tool in a case like keny is that in isolation i think it would have been utterly ineffective right if if basically your policy focuses on what you have to complain about um and you're not doing much on the side of what are you trying to build um i think the the sort of net result of that is making ourselves perhaps feel good and and not a whole heck of a lot more i think that you know as a part of an approach that is much more uh encompassing and and thought out and carefully sequenced where you're trying to send one signal here while you're providing some support for the the change agents elsewhere then then i think it can be quite effective and certainly it's interesting because i've i've heard complaints about this absolutely across the spectrum is incredibly heavy-handed and inappropriate and set back efforts that it wasn't strong enough um and didn't actually bite because you should have gone much further and so i i i listen to it all it's um it's helpful guidance and i i just i think the most important thing to say about that is i think that that tools like that can be very effective but very rarely are they effective in a vacuum on accountability this is an incredibly important piece one that all senior usg officials have spoken to when they've spoken publicly about uh kenya and i think that it's very hard to see uh how kenya kind of definitively uh enters a new era and its politics if you don't have any kind of accountability whatsoever for orchestrating the sort of violence that we saw in the post-election period it's just not uh it's not a viable way to proceed and so again these are you know we we can't want this more than the kenyan people it's a it's a kenyan a kenyan issue but our position has been crystal clear from the beginning and it's not going to change uh on let's see i'm gonna let somebody else speak to civil society's efforts to get more support and financial support domestically uh but on the importance of assistance the electoral process it's an excellent point and it would be uh it would be absolutely tragic actually if we'd moved out as aggressively we have on on trying to help see that trajectory and kenya take upward on the governance side and drop the ball on the electoral process so i i take it on board i and i have a set of questions i want to go back and ask my colleagues and make sure that we're in the right place thank you have a quick uh wrap up remarks from the the remainder of our panel okay quickly i will speak to this some civil society issues and i think just perspective i'm sure my colleagues we also give some perspective to reinforce that i think on the question of supporting civil society i think a satisfactory model is was a satisfactory model i think that that's a difficult question i i've just give my own perspectives that that really what my colleague was saying about the project approach uh is really well you can see that that's that's absolutely the wrong way to to look at supporting civil society for two reasons i i think i'll highlight two reasons one is that first of all i mean in a democratic process civil society is an end in itself its existence is one of the objectives so if you look at the project and i think that's what's been happening because of the perspective of looking at it as a project so you say you know and the people with the development as we having people from a development economic development doing these is you know you do an economic development project and it's finished and you move on and you don't see as at the purpose of civil society is actually an existential thing that you're trying to ensure that it's always there we say in terms of vigilance it must be eternal so that's one of the perspectives look at the fact that it's really seeing the existence and of an active robust sort of vibrant civil society is one of the ends not something that you don't remember and they say oh oh we've had a clean a good referendum so you know you don't need civil society for now until you know next time the second one which i think is a very oft missed dimension i for me is very important because i've witnessed it happening a lot is that civil society in societies like ours uh has a another sort of spin-off which is leadership development really if you look at civil society really is the incubation of of of an alternative leadership because the the situation you're coming from is one where the leadership culture that you have in the public real is not what you want so people who are being socialized in that system are not the ones you want to be the leaders or the new whatever so where are the sort of alternative leadership for the new sort of dispensational gonna come from the other people who are sort of socialized in civil society and i mean countless personal examples i mean my my last PA my research assistant my last personal assistant research assistant is now the director of governance in the government and she was sort of five six years ago she was just my research assistant and she's the director of governance and treasury and there are many countless individuals you can see who are coming out into government bringing that different sort of culture and that again is an output which is often missed that the supporting civil society is is contributing because there is no other platform there's no other forum where people can acquire the sort of kind of values and and whatever that that you want for in open society and democratic governance David i think we're gonna yeah just one final point on domestic funding why the issue of domestic funding why is there not domestic what the problem is domestic funding there is actually a domestically funded financial society especially interest groups you know we look at the NCCK the church type of interest groups are predominantly domestically financed the foreign dependent society is what i call the intellectual civil society especially the think tanks the governance NGOs and those type of institutions and why is that it's basically because you don't have the private wealth in countries like Kenya which supports those kind of institutions in a country like this you don't have George Soros and people like that so i think it's inevitable that for a long time that's gonna have to be externally or funded from other sources until you sort of develop the sort of their private private private wealth that can sort of philanthropy that that can support that sector thanks just quickly to Kennedy and then Joe so much okay thank you very much on the ability of civil society to gather resources locally i mean what are the possible sources one could be the population i mean to the the UK where i attended two buses where student is it bashes i know english is not my language where students you know they say you get in with the three pounds two pounds and they get the money for people like action aid and oxford unfortunately this cannot happen in Kenya because of decades of your patronage nowadays we are coming from a country where you know people demand is it sitting and now standing allowing for attending a rally the the tendency in our country it's so much but it didn't it was not like that before those who have read our history know what used to happen pioneer civil societies like the Kuwait Central Association used to get monies of their own and take people like Kenyatta you know just villagers selling chicken and small monies and pulling it together and sending a delegation to London or taking people for further education that initiative has been abused by patronage where now elites used to come in the 80s when it was bad you used to have i mean you have organized a fundraiser and an individual just one individual come and they will give the whole entire amount and advise you to keep your money and go and use it somewhere else so they have removed the initiative from the people so it's very difficult to get money from people the other one would be private sector but issues of corruption and where we are coming from i mean why would someone from i mean support civil society around that abstract issue that that a lot makes sense to me if you want something change you go to see a minister with a briefcase and it'll be done so you you invest wisely you don't have to the other alternative will be government because i know your governments give funding to civil society i mean it's inconceivable that that will happen in Kenya in the near future unless maybe you force their hand so but they are their option which most of them are also could not be attractive civil society like the center for governance and development i mean we have the capacity to do consultancies we can also do service provision but that also comes with the you know conflict of interest challenges it goes and when you advocate is one of your agenda it's also difficult i mean you do consultancy for government then the next time when you want to something done or what do you do so there are challenges on that and the final point i want to make and it tries with the what i can say it was that i think there's room within even the external funding that we have to build institution and i think it put it so well for the long term poli don't have policies around funding for civil society like now you ever says they are i mean what they call it design to perpetuate you know dependency i think there's room things like rental premises i think there could be room why would you pay rent for an organization for 20 years and you cannot allow them to get a mortgage and you spend the money anyway why can't it be structured in a way that can i mean give them some independence in the medium and long term issues like endowment why don't you start the finding so that they can build endowment that they can you have to begin from somewhere so some of those policies can be changed i mean we are building institutions and the institution for the long term let's start the finding in such a way that we foresee a student where the partner will you know stand on their two legs and walk at some point and survive without us or if they are supposed to get something from us that is minimal thank you very much okay 30 seconds i'll make it three points instead of four since civil society has already been discussed a little quieter diplomacy particularly within kenya might be the best way to go from here on out that is to say certainly once it's clear where the us stands by the statement of the president the interview he gave with kbc and vice president biden but after that we've had a very peripatetic ambassador who seems to be everywhere and i don't know i'll let the kenyans respond to that secondly political parties i'm sorry and rose for rose i disagree with you the research shows frankly that in terms of the development of the legislature strong discipline parties actually complicate it and until there are programmatic based political parties in africa which is generally not the pattern now it's extremely difficult for the donors to get involved in this ticket they tried to get burnt i won't elaborate all the the ins and out of this it's just very difficult to do given you know the limited time and and resources i would focus more in state institutions and that brings me around finally to the electoral commission and the and the election of 2012 i'll endorse what mary said we need to start now we need to be clear who the viable partners are in this period of transition from the interim election commission and also from the boundary commission because there's a whole issue on the constituencies how they're going to be drawn and the how the boundaries of the counties are drawn and frankly we have some useful technical skills here that can be brought to bear but the dialogue has to be begin now and you know ifas ndi have a lot of capacity here because as many of you know who are in this room most of what we do in this this area we rely on contractors for better or worse and and that requires some lead times listen i want to thank our speakers very much i mean what i'm getting out of this is focus on the elections begin focusing now focus on institutions rather than individuals there are going to be new institutions created a new institutional relationships a new relationship between the executive and the legislature what does that say for engagement with the legislator this devolution brings up all kinds of issues about capacity about oversight at a local level which also says something about civil societies need to kind of deep into the local level to provide mechanisms oversight there and really using our voice strategically at key moments of opportunity i think we've done we've done a really it's been a remarkable past year for you for us engagement in kenya especially as i said at the outset given everything else that's going on and i think at least for in this administration i think that's that's very likely to continue particularly with an advocate and a champion for this in the person of michelle so i want to thank again all our panelists our our audience for being with us today and and the full day it's been a terrific set of discussions and we're hoping to write up a summary of this and then audio if you want to go back and listen to this again and again is will be on our website thank you