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In the 2007/08 post-election period and the clashes therein, the Kenyan civil society organizations (CSOs) played a key role in ensuring that then President the Late Mwai Kibaki and his arch rival Raila Odinga sat at the negotiation table and engage in dialogue. This was in a bid to end the tribal clashes that were prevailing at the time at the expense of thousands of Kenyans’ lives while more than 600,000 others lost their homes.
According to the Atlantic Philanthropies, “A grouping of Kenya’s finest civil society minds participated in international and regional advocacy to highlight the crisis and to ensure the international community had objective information about what caused the crisis and its consequence.”
The powerful CSOs then had access to international donors and governments. They used their influence to lobby international players to pressure the warring parties to mediate. Odinga and Kibaki began the dialogue in mid-January 2008 and on 28th February 2008 they agreed to sign the Principles of Partnership of the Coalition Government.
In this partnership, both Kibaki and Odinga were to share political power and form a joint government that became the Grand Coalition Government. Additionally, they agreed to amend the constitution and enact the National Accord and Reconciliation Act 2008. Violence ceased when the National Accord was signed by both the President and his new Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
The civil societies that were involved prominently during this process wereConcerned Citizens for Peace (CCP), Kenyans for Peace, Truth and Justice (KPTJ), Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR), Vital Voices, Citizens for the Recounting of Votes, Centre for Multi-Party Democracy (CMD), the National Salvation Forum, Kenya Red Cross, National Civil Society Congress among many others.
