Civic Education on Human Rights and capacity-building: Developing UN's Human Rights approach to sustainable human development will be a dynamic process of empowering citizens through provision of Civic Education to enable them make decisions or choices from an informed position. Provide citizens with important information that shall enable them to effectively engage those in public offices to enhance transparency and accountability.
 

CAPACITY BUILDING OF THE INSTITUTIONS AND CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATION:

Focused training and capacity building of both organizations and citizens are vital in strengthening Human Rights at the country level. Training participants, who are influential and respected members of their local communities mobilised with the help of religious institutions, CBOs, NGOs, the District Social Development Officers and political party representatives. The training are intended to create awareness among participants and equip them with tools and skills to adequately disseminate same information to the communities they come from. It strengthens the participants’ ability to monitor and document the violation of Human Rights in their areas. We encourage them to prepare annual reports capturing all reported and documented cases, to serve as a lobbying and advocacy tool with policy-makers as part of the strategy to address Human Rights violations.  Partnership building Strategic partnerships, internally and externally, are fundamental to development effectiveness. Advocacy and awareness raising. Community of Practice and knowledge networking Situation analysis; programme formulation, implementation, monitoring.

A Human Rights-sensitive assessment should be a broad examination of people’s access to their full range of rights. Ideally, a Human Rights-sensitive assessment of a development situation should involve multidisciplinary teams to ensure that account is taken not only of legal aspects but also of social, political, economic cultural and other issues affecting the development of the country.

Active, free and meaningful participation and Access to information is of course vital in this respect, and mechanisms to ensure transparency must be included in the programme, and project design. Every effort must be made in ensuring the participation of those people and communities whose lives will be affected by the decisions made on their behalf. Programmes should specifically strive to include forward-looking capacity development activities and strategies that will strengthen the capacities of these stakeholders to participate meaningfully in future development processes.

National Action Plans for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights; Human Rights Programme Reviews; Poverty Reduction and Human Rights; Parliamentary Development and Human Rights; Human Rights and the Environment; Decentralised Governance and Human Rights; Human Rights and the Police; and a Human Rights-based approach to Access to Justice.

PROMOTING THE ADVANCEMENT OF WOMEN

Women's rights are Human Rights. But the recognition of women's worth and equality with men must be complemented with various protections and policies. Legal rights can enhance women's living conditions by legislating against gender bias in employment, discrimination in pay and incentives, and violence and harassment. Moreover, legal rights can contribute towards increasing women's capabilities by giving them property and inheritance rights, better access to credit and other productive resources, and increased political participation and representation. From a Human Rights perspective, UN's sustainable human development efforts are directed towards elimination of discrimination against women (and other marginalized groups) through programmes and processes that, for example, help governments:

• Advocate for reforms in the legal systems to outlaw discrimination in employment, education, family affairs, land rights, credit services and other entitlements.

• Redress the effects of past discrimination.

• Educate and empower women (and others who are excluded, discriminated against and disadvantaged) and enable their effective participation in development.

The population of Kenya is estimated to be 35 million of which 85% live in Rural area and 52% of them are women, who in the past have been side lined from participation in decision-making. One way women shall be empowered is through Advocacy and dissemination of Civic Education and their eventual demand for participation in decision-making process at both Grassroots and National level. Women need to be empowered to entrench certain provision in the Constitution to make it possible for them to rise to positions of power and protect their interests. Affirmative action is such approach especially by electing women leaders to elective offices both at Local and National Level to represent the unique women interests and needs. Women have been marginalized from governance issues due to myths and cultural reasons.
 

Kenyans continue to remain most vulnerable ignorant masses and need knowledge, skills in order to serve women interest in a country where they are the majority. Serious agitation for women participation and representation must ensue with their adequate facilitation in the legislation and policy formulation discussions. In this instance, our projects give provide special space for women to drive the agitated demands for involvement and participation. Women concerned non–governmental organizations and women friendly community based organizations must enhance affirmative action and women in development principles. The message must be disseminated so that women are aware of their rights. There is a need for women to protect any gains. The need to know clearly that there are rights and protection on women and the Constitutional requirement that one-third of all appointive and elective offices shall be women.

Promoting and Protecting Human Rights in Post-Conflict Societies.

Most humanitarian emergencies, particularly human-made ones, are accompanied by widespread disregard for fundamental Human Rights. These crises provoke massive internal displacements, murders, destruction of property, undermine coping capacities, destroy economic infrastructure, devastate the environment and often neutralize legitimate political systems and governance institutions. In the process, there are usually high infringements and violations of Human Rights. They also can threaten regional and international peace and security. Reconciliation, reconstruction and recovery cannot progress without basic human security and strong national institutions that protect fundamental Human Rights.

PROMOTING MORE TRANSPARENT AND ACCOUNTABLE GOVERNMENT INSTITUTIONS.

A key determinant for successful democratic consolidation is the ability of democratically-elected governments to provide "good governance." While many citizens of developing countries value characteristics associated with democracy (e.g., elections, Human Rights, and representation), they are often equally interested in qualities such as public accountability, responsiveness, transparency, and efficiency. "Good governance" assumes a government's ability to maintain social peace, guarantee law and order, promote or create conditions necessary for economic growth, and ensure a minimum level of social security. Yet, many new governments fail to realize the long-term benefits of adopting effective governance policies. Even in cases where governments recognize the value of such policies, they often lack the capacity to implement them. For these reasons, newly democratic governments too often revert to more familiar patterns of authoritarianism and abuse. Kenya is not exempted from this paradigm.

Because the behaviour of formal State actors can support or undermine developmental and democratic processes, CELAK works to encourage government to reform certain structures and processes to make them more transparent, accountable, and participatory. CELAK works to encourage more transparent and accountable government institutions in five areas:

• Anti-corruption

• Democratic decentralization

• Legislative strengthening

• Civil-military relations

• Effective policy implementation.

• Enterprise Development

At the same time CELAK promotes:

• Provision of Civic Education to create awareness to enhance citizen participation in the management of public affairs.

• Transparent Procedures for individuals to effectively claim one’s rights;

• Good governance and accountable government institutions that promote and protect Human Rights;

• Democratic, open, transparent and participatory decision making processes;

• Networking with likeminded organizations to promote Strong civil society, including a free and independent media.

CELAK partners have intended to support initiatives in Civic Education, Democratisation, promotion of economic growth. Most of these have combined “bottom-up” or enterprise-level interventions (credit, training, technical assistance) with broader programs intended to improve the enabling environment for private enterprise development and growth.

Building Partnerships:
CELAK will continue to build partnerships and ensure the full involvement of major stakeholders. These partnerships will help build consensus, coordinate and share expertise and best practices, and establish a policy dialogue, ensuring the sustainability of UN'S Human Rights support. The most important partners will be the likeminded NGOs involved in Human Rights.
At home, CELAK will continue to build partnerships with local authorities as well as community-based organizations and other civil society organizations.