NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 24 – The African Union (AU) Panel of Eminent African Personalities will next month take stock of what has been achieved in the implementation of the peace agreement made during the 2008 mediation process in Kenya.
AU Panel of Eminent African Personalities Chief of Staff, Ambassador Nana Effah-Apeteng said on Wednesday conference was scheduled to start on December 2 to assess how far Kenya has gone in executing the accord.
He said there would be five panels at the two-day conference which will be co-hosted by the Kofi Annan Foundation.
"The first one will deal with strengthening of institutions for the implementation of the Constitution while another panel will deal with enhancing and ensuring democratic space, rule of law and protection of the citizenry," he explained.
The Chief of Staff said that panels three and four would deal with promoting national cohesion and integration and the roles and responsibility of the media in the monitoring and implementation of reform agenda respectively.
"Panel five will look at the way forward," he said.
The conference would also address the challenges the country is facing in the implementation of the peace accord.
Amb Effah-Apeteng noted that the major milestone Kenya had made since the negotiations that followed the post election violence was the promulgation of the new Constitution and the challenge now was in its implementation.
"Even the Constitution has a lot of institutions to be set up each with deadlines. It\’s not going to be easy and that\’s why for instance the commission to deal with the implementation of the Constitution which is yet to be set up is supposed to be in existence for five years," he said.
"This means it will take us five years to know how far we have gone in respect to the implementation of the Constitution itself but we have to begin from somewhere," he added.
In March last year, the Kofi Annan Foundation hosted a similar event in Geneva and through a number of panel discussions, drew lessons from the mediation in Kenya that can be shared with Africa and the wider world.
The meeting had brought together key actors in Kenya\’s mediation efforts as well as international and civil society representatives, academics, analysts and members of the media.
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