Interpeace's Kenya programme has focused on addressing deep-rooted historical grievances and socio-economic inequalities, particularly in the Northern regions of the country. Established in 2014 through a Memorandum of Understanding with the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC), the programme has made significant strides in fostering peace and social cohesion. One of its earliest successes was in Mandera County, where interventions have significantly reduced cyclical communal violence and established robust local peace infrastructures. The learnings from this pilot phase have now been adopted and cascaded to a broad context in Northern Counties and cross-border communities.
Interpeace has pioneered community-led peace mechanisms in Mandera, setting benchmarks for conflict resolution across Kenya. Its key interventions include the establishment of Intervillage Dialogue Spaces (IVDS), which provide structured platforms for negotiating disputes, fostering reconciliation, and preventing localised conflicts in hotspot areas. Complementing these efforts, Conflict Monitoring Committees (CMC) have been instrumental in tracking peace agreements in real time, de-escalating tensions, enabling proactive conflict response, and reinforcing locally driven and sustainable peace efforts across conflict belts.
As part of these initiatives, Interpeace supported the establishment of the Regional Peace Centre in Mandera, a groundbreaking hub for mediation, research, and capacity-building for peace actors. The centre has significantly strengthened local ownership of peace processes by providing a neutral space for conflict resolution and multi-stakeholder engagement, setting a precedent for similar initiatives in other conflict-prone areas and undertaking a conflict early warning and response mechanism. Additionally, the County Peace Actors Forum (CPAF) has emerged as a vital coordination platform, bringing together local leaders, security agencies, community representatives, and development partners to align peacebuilding efforts, promote accountability, and institutionalise early warning and response systems at the county level. These approaches have not only reduced communal violence and resource-based conflicts in Mandera but have also been recognised as best practices for broader application in all the Counties in Northern Kenya.
Building on this success, the programme expanded in 2019 to the North Rift and Wajir regions following rapid fragility and resilience assessments. While peace in the North Rift remains fragile, notable milestones include the Baragoi Peace Accord of 2020 and the Orwa 1 Peace Accord of 2021, which played a key role in mitigating decades of conflict in the Suguta valley belt and Samburu North.
In 2022, the programme expanded into Marsabit County to address the long-standing intercommunal conflicts that had led to killings, property destruction, and displacement. This intervention began with research on ‘Challenges to Peace in Marsabit County’, forming the basis for targeted community engagements. A significant achievement has been the Silencing of the Guns initiative, which has contributed to a notable reduction in violence since 2023. That same year, the programme extended to Laikipia County, starting with conflict research before launching peace engagements to address emerging tensions.
The programme will continue expanding its footprint in Laikipia County while broadening its peace engagements to include Isiolo and Meru and focusing more on engaging in the coastal counties. Additionally, it will strengthen cross-border peacebuilding efforts in the Mandera Triangle, encompassing Ethiopia and Somalia.
A key focus remains on reinforcing self-sustaining community-level peace infrastructures through close collaboration with the Network for Peace, Cohesion, and Heritage (NEPCOH) Trust, a local organisation that emerged from Interpeace’s work in Kenya. Interpeace is also committed to integrating peacebuilding into other sectors by supporting development and humanitarian agencies to be more peace responsive and by addressing the intersections of peace with climate change, mental Health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) and opening of marginalised regions of the country through advocacy for peace-positive investment opportunities. The ongoing and previous phases of this project have been generously funded by the German Federal Foreign Office (GFFO) and the EU.
The programme’s goal is to contribute to advancing peace, security, and development in fragile Counties in Kenya by transforming grassroots communities into agents of peace capable of managing their conflict through non-violent means.
In 2024, Kenya faced significant security challenges, including violent protests over the Finance Bill 2024, which led to casualties and forced its withdrawal. Human rights violations, including arbitrary arrests and disappearances, raised global concern. Organised youth gangs increased insecurity in urban areas, while banditry in Kerio Valley, Samburu, Isiolo, and Meru caused over 75 deaths and displaced many. The unrest highlighted the urgent and ongoing need for governance and security reforms.
In Kenya, Interpeace and its partners work to strengthen the capacities of local, sub-national, and national peacebuilding infrastructures to collectively prevent and manage violent conflict and build horizontal and vertical trust. This has involved supporting collaborative security, livelihoods and natural resource management initiatives, including establishing community-level resource-sharing structures and locally-owned and led early warning mechanisms. This work has resulted in increased social cohesion and resilience to climate-induced shocks, the signing of resource-sharing agreements between communities, and commitments to increased investments in hotspot areas by development actors and county governments.
Interpeace and its partners involved 19,937 people in this initiative, including 3,290 women and 5,287 youth. The project supported 23 local infrastructures and addressed a total of 54 conflicts. Interpeace supported ten income-generating activities, seven with state actors and 17 with security actors.
