NewsBrief August 2015 Issue

#ActOnGenderRule @The Green Amendment Campaign

The struggle to fight injustices that cause poverty and exclusion underpins Action Aid’s work in Kenya. Even with our consistent and sustained efforts to work with and for people living in poverty and exclusion, limiting legislative and policy frameworks have continued to act as some of the major im-pediments to the advancement of women’s rights. A case in point is the lack of a conducive regulatory regime that anchors women’s property rights in the complex customary land tenure system inherent in community land in Kenya. For the last one month AAK has convened various consensus build-ing meetings for Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) on the Community Land Bill currently before the National Assembly. In the next 2 weeks AAK and other CSOs will engage communities across the country to consolidate a shared position on emerging issues in the Community Land Bill for sharing with the committees on land for both the Senate and the National Assembly.

The other legislative process that continue to define AAK’s engagement efforts at National and County level is the campaign towards the protection and realization of the 2/3 gender principle in the constitution of Kenya 2010. The Constitution provides for not more than two thirds gender representa-tion in all elective positions. However meeting this threshold has been met with various hurdles and has become an almost impossible task. The Supreme Court set August 27th, 2015 as the deadline of achieving not more than two thirds gender threshold.

ActionAid Kenya in partnership with, the National Women Steering Committee (NWSC), the Kenya Parliamentarians Human Rights Association and other Civil Society Organizations has been part of the Green Amendment Campaign which sets out two Formulas to achieve not more than two thirds gender rule. The campaign aims to collect 1 million signatures to introduce a formula through an amendment of the Constitution of Kenya 2010 that will ensure that at least one third of members of the Senate, National and County assemblies are women.

At AAK, we believe in strengthening women leadership through enhanced political representation. We are committed to ensuring that the constitutional gains on affirmative action are protected and promoted through an enabling legislative framework. I would like to encourage you to sign up for the Green Amendment Campaign and stand in solidarity with the women of Kenya.

In Solidarity,

Kenyatta Maitha

The Green Amendment Campaign held a social media influ-encers meeting on July 15th, 2015 at the PAWA254 in Nai-robi.

Among the various issues discussed at the forum was that affirmative action in Kenya will help to break cultural barri-ers that prevent women from taking part in Kenya’s leader-ship and addressing the various commonly held misconcep-tions on Women Leadership in Kenya.

You can also follow more campaign activities on :

The Green Amendment Facebook Page

https://twitter.com/GreenAmendment

Or write to Agnes.Kola@actionaid.org

The Green Amendment Campaign Continues

AAK Staff volunteered and signed up to sponsor the building of a classroom for students at Orus Primary School in Tangulbei LRP to replace the dilapidated one pictured above. AAK staff are proud to have an opportunity to contribute to AAK work in the LRP and hope that this project will be the first of many more to come.

The LRP is combating glaring educational challenges which include: low enrolment, lack of adequate educational facilities, lack of enough boarding facilities, lack of strong community structures to spearhead educational campaigns, ignorance among parents on the importance of education and negative attitude towards education especially girl child education.

By building more classrooms, the LRP aims to demonstrate to the Baringo County Government the viability of partnerships in delivering development projects.

Launch of the ActionAiders for ActionAid Project

UPDATES

EDITOR’S NOTE

WHAT IS THE GREEN AMENDMENT CAMPAIGN?

By Makena Mwobobia

The Green Amendment Campaign is a popular initiative by the people of Kenya led by National Women’s Steering Committee (NWSC), the Kenya Human Rights Parliamentary Association (KEPHRA) and Civil Society Organizations which aims at mobilizing 1 million signatures to introduce a formula through an amendment of the Constitution of Kenya 2010 that would ensure that at least 1/3 of members of the Senate, National and County assemblies are women.

The Constitution of Kenya 2010 entrenched substantive affirmative action safeguards by providing that no one gender shall occupy more than 2/3 of elective seats in the Senate, the National Assembly, the County Assemblies as well as in all public offices in Kenya. However this provision has not been complied with. Through an advisory opinion sort by the Attorney General on this Constitutional requirement, the Supreme Court advised that the provision must be complied with by 27th August 2015.

The Green Amendment process is a bottom- up approach which resonates well with ActionAid’s Human Based Rights Approach (HRBA) principles that advocate for inclusion of the poor and excluded people in governance and decision making processes in the country.

HOW IT WORKS

The Green Amendment is sponsoring two bills with different Formulas:

FORMULA 94:

This bill seeks to amend the constitution by doing the following:

Reduce the Constituencies to 210

Have each county elect two women as opposed to the current one, making a total 94

Have the number of county assemblies fixed in the Constitution at 1450.

Remove the provision of nominations in the county assemblies for purposes of attaining the third gender rule and instead have the two adjacent wards in each Constituency elect one woman making a total of 725 women elected on the special ward seats.

Have a nomination of special interest groups to satisfy the 5% anticipated by the Constitution article 54 (2)

Have each county elect two senators, one man and one woman. vi. Have a sunset clause of 10 years on the special seats

FORMULA 136:

This bill seeks to amend the Constitution by doing the following:

Retain the Current Number of Constituencies at 290

Increase the number of Women Members elected in Special seats to 136 up from the current 47. The women MPs will be elected by the two adja-cent Constituencies in each County in Counties with even number Constituencies, while counties with Odd number Constituencies will have the last three adjacent Constituencies with the lowest population lumped together

Have the number of county assemblies fixed in the Constitution at 1450. Remove the provision of nominations in the county assemblies for purpos-es of attaining the third gender rule and instead have the two adjacent wards in each Constituency elect one woman making a total of 725 women elected on the special ward seats.

Have a nomination of special interest groups to satisfy the 5% anticipated by the Constitution article 54 (2)

Have each county elect two senators, one man and one woman

Have a sunset clause of 10 years on the special seats

HOW CAN YOU PARTICIPATE IN THE GREEN AMENDMENT?

Sign the green amendment petition. I million signatures are required to pass the bills.

Add to the National Debate on the two thirds gender rule and the green amendment campaign on Social Media

Participate in the ongoing mobilization activities to collect signatures

For more information on how to participate, please email Agnes.Kola@actionaid.org

#ActOnGenderRule @The Green Amendment Campaign

Your Voice Counts!

The Green Amendment at Khwisero LRP

On 11th of July the residents of Khwisero Sub-county in Kakamega County came in large numbers to hear

about The Green Amendment Campaign at the Khwisero Sports Ground. The day was set a side to launch

the signature collection campaign in Kakamega County.

“Despite the many success made by women in various social and economic spheres of life, they are

still excluded from mainstream processes of political participation and representation in Kenya,” said

Daisy Amdany, the convener of the National Women’s Steering Committee (NWSC) as she addressed the

public at the Khwisero Sports Ground.

Daisy further said that the option mostly used to get women in politics at the moment is nominations which

are many times unfairly done, leaving out competent women. She therefore urged the public to say no to this

unfair treatment of women by supporting the Green Amendment Campaign whose proposed formulas pro-

vide for options for women to be elected rather than nominated.

“We should endeavor to support women in our society and putting down our signatures to support

the Green Amendment Campaign is one way to do it,” said Samson Michura, Cluster Manager, AAK.

The calls to have the signatures were not turned down as the public eagerly signed up.

“This is a great move and I hope the whole Nation of Kenya will follow what the people of Khwisero

are doing in supporting the women to get into progressive politics. It has been proven that women

make great leaders so for our communities to develop further we need them in power, “explained

Grace Sande, Secretary, Pambazuko Khwisero Chapter.

AAK Local Rights Programmes Host the Green Amendment Campaign

AAK Staff stand in solidarity with the Green Amendment Campaign Green Amendment Caravan

Schedule & Sign Up Points

6th August 2015

Nairobi

Embu

7th August 2015

Embu

Runyenjes

Chuka

Nkubu

Meru

Isiolo

8th August 2015

Nanyuki

Narumoru

Chaka

Doldol– Kimanjo

Primary

9th August 2015

Rumuruti

Nyahururu

Gilgil

Naivasha

Kimende

Kijabe

Limuru

Kikuyu

Kinoo

Uthiru

Your Voice Counts!

Snap Shots….

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Q 1.What will happen if the women exceed men in numbers after the general

elections i.e women are also voted in at the constituency level?

A. That will be a positive step and should not be an issue unless the women

exceed by two thirds of the men.

Q2. What will be the role of the constituency women MPs and will they have the

same mandate as the male MPS representing the Constituencies?

A. The role of an MP is: oversight, legislation and representation. These roles

are constant irrespective of the gender of the MP. Recently parliament did

set up a kitty to be run by Women representatives, the kitty is tied to a

constituency and so in this case the women will manage and oversee the

kitty in the constituencies they are elected from.

Q3. What will happen if the MPs (both men and constituency women ) come

from the same locality/village? Will this not marginalise communities

further?

A. Kenya uses a system of first past the post, and the problem of political mobili-

sation is a cultural and attitude problem that might be difficult to heal in

law. However the 2013 general elections results showed that most coun-

ties did dialogue on how to ensure that positions are distributed equitably

among all communities. It’s therefore highly probable that communities

will take the initiative to do the same.

Q4. Does the Bill rule out nomination of all other groups of people including the

youth and People Living with Disabilities?

A. The bill does provide for the required percentage of persons with disabilities

as per Article 54(2) of the Constitution. It also caters for the other special

interest groups in Article 100 of the Constitution.

Participate!

Please Email Pascaline.Kangethe@actionaid.org to find

out how you can take part in our ongoing Tax Justice

Campaign

Participate!

Please Email Philip.Kilonzo@actionaid.org to find out

how you can take part in our ongoing Land For Com-

munities and With Women Campaign

Produced by the AAK Communications Unit. Design: Christine Muna.

Do you have a story or update to share? Send it to Lucy.Wanjiku@actionaid.org / Christine.Muna@actionaid.org.

Find us online for more information ActionAid International, Kenya twitter.com/ActionAid_Kenya www.actionaid.org/kenya

Email Agnes.Kola@actionaid.org to find

out how you can participate in the ongoing Green

Amendment Campaign