Report on the fourth Kenyan National Youth Convention (NYC)

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/404/Kibaki_and_Odinga_l.jpgIt was in 2004 at Bomas in Kenya - a centre of cultural values - that delegates of different interests and aspirations from all over the country met to discuss the country’s constitution review. This 18 – 20 September 2008, more than four years later, close to a thousand young women and men from all provinces and diverse backgrounds of the Kenyan nation convened at the extraordinary session of the National Youth Convention (NYC IV) at the same venue, but this time not for discussing about the constitution review but in order to put together strengths to rebuild their nation and reconcile their communities.
Though there have been some positive changes since the first national youth convention took place in 1997 such as the creation of the ministry of youth and a fund for young entrepreneurs, the recent post-election crisis was the main reason for organising the fourth and extraordinary session of the national youth convention.

According to the statistics of Mars Group Kenya, persons under the age of 35 years make up 79.1 percent of the entire 35,890,645 Kenyan population. However, the same source adds that only six percent of this population - people above 55 years of age - controls the country’s economy and dictates its politics.

After considering how young people were the most vulnerable in the post-election crisis, the ethnic revulsion that intensified its spread among Kenyans, marginalisation of youth in the daily life of the country, growing youth unemployment and lack of access to loans and capitals, youth leaders decided to convene the NYC IV under the motto and theme ‘Vijana Tujipange’ (young people, let us get ready) and ‘Rebuilding our nation...reconciling our communities: The challenges and prospects for young Kenyans’ respectively.

One of the conveners, George G., told me: ‘We want this convention to be a process of involving young Kenyans in rebuilding and reconstructing our country. Kenya has become a role model not only in the East Africa Community, but also in Africa. We want this convention to be a pan-African movement where young people have a role in building their countries.’

To emphasise on the pan-African side of the NYC IV, conveners had invited about a hundred youth from other African countries and the rest of the world to share experiences and learn from each other.

The NYC IV started with many expectations from the participants. They hoped, among other things, to have a clear agenda of youth participation in the country, to be involved in the constitutional review process, to see the National Youth Policy - a bill that seeks to concretise the role of young people in the national agenda - become a reality, to mobilise other youth in the country and to get young people involved in entrepreneurship and other business activities.
Other speakers went further to ask for less government bureaucracy, the reduction of the current 40 ministries to 13, for 60 percent of the government budget to be spent on development projects, for punishment for all civil servants implicated in corruption scandals, and to have a government free from dishonesty.

The convention, carefully organised around seven plenary sessions, six hosted sessions, four track sessions - about Kenya’s current issues - and other open discussions, had on the agenda the concretisation of the role of young people in the national agenda, historical injustices in Kenya, ethnicity and the challenges of nationhood, setting priorities and a rational framework for reconstruction of post-conflict Kenya, evaluation of the National Accord - a reconstruction and reconciliation accord signed after the election crisis - its implementation and the role of young people in the process and the completion of the constitutional review process.

After their deliberations, the NYC IV participants gave a formal announcement that they termed ‘Draft Bomas Declarations.’ Under this document, the delegates reaffirmed that the NYC is the forum and movement of patriotic youth of Kenya, a legitimate forum for consensus building, agenda setting and strategy building for the the country’s transformation into a democratic, just and prosperous nation.

The NYC IV demanded an all inclusive, participatory and democratic constitution making process. Young people, who constitute the majority of Kenya and who will be governed under the forthcoming constitution, must fully participate in the making of that constitution. The NYC declares that while the national accord and reconciliation agreements helped to halt violent eruptions and breakdown of law and order in Kenya, the framework is anti-people, anti-youth and not accountable. The national accord and reconciliation framework must be reconfigured so that it is youth centred and pro-people.

Delegates further stated that the government formed under the national accord framework is anti-people, corrupt and wasteful. The young people of Kenya shall work with all other democratic forces to ensure that Kenya is governed by a clean, lean, just, accountable and responsive government. ‘We here and now as the youth of Kenya declare that we shall not deal with the grand coalition government on a business-as-usual mode’, they added.

The NYC IV was another step forward in democracy in Kenya, the east African region and Africa as a whole, where young people, who constitute the majority in African counties, set the agenda and decide how their countries have to be ruled. It is a process to be encouraged if Africa is to become a democratic continent where the rule of law prevails.

* Yves Niyiragira is from Burundi and started working with Fahamu as a volunteer in the Nairobi office in 2006. He now works on the AU Monitor initiative.
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