Kenya will from today sit on the UN Security Council, 23 years after it was last a member of the global organisation’s most powerful organ.
But the victory for the non-permanent seat, won after an acrimonious battle with Djibouti in 2020, must now include an agenda Kenya initially did not include on its campaign posters.
As the race heated up, the Covid-19 pandemic grew in scale.
So far, at least 95,500 Kenyans have been infected and 1,600 have died.
Africa has recorded at least 2.7 million Covid-19 infections, 63,000 deaths and 2.2 million recoveries.
Yet the pandemic, its politics and impact both locally and globally were never included in the campaigns.
Focus area
Kenya’s areas of focus included building bridges for consensus with other countries, strengthening peace and security in the region, cooperation in fighting terror, empowering the youth and women, as well as sustaining humanitarian response to crises.
Other pledges were defending climate change agenda, civil liberties and justice as well as sustainable development.
Ahead of the first day on the Council, officials in Nairobi said the pandemic is now a reality and every member of the UN should train their focus on containing the viral disease.
Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Raychelle Omamo said Kenya will work with “like-minded” members to advance its four initial areas of focus on, adding that the pandemic will be the immediate challenge.
“The ongoing global Covid-19 pandemic, as well as increasingly divergent philosophical and political approaches to global issues among the major powers, call for skilful engagements to build bridges and galvanise consensus towards sustainable global peace,” she argued in a commentary this week.
Regional efforts
Ms Omamo argued that Kenya was already taking part in regional efforts to fight the pandemic, including through the country’s membership on the Bureau of the African Heads of State and Government, where leaders have lobbied for financial aid to economies in Africa.
The bureau is chaired by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and includes leaders from Kenya, Ethiopia, Mali, Rwanda and the DRC.
When Kenya last sat on the Security Council, it did so in the absence of regional acrimony as was seen when Djibouti refused to concede after losing at the AU voting. But its membership to the UN Security Council is now coinciding with Nairobi’s membership on the African Union Peace and Security Council. Kenya will sit on both Councils until December 2022. Ms Omamo said that demonstrates Kenya’s “abilities and leadership to pursue the continent’s interests at the Council”.
This month
In September, President Kenyatta said Kenya would be ready by the time the Council sits from this month.
"We will work closely with all member states to ensure that the Council discharges its mandate in an inclusive, responsive and consultative manner because peace is a collective effort," he said in a pre-recorded address to the UN General Assembly then.
The 2020 Assembly was the first virtual one after the UN imposed restrictions to reduce crowding at the headquarters in New York to curb Covid-19 infections.
The President listed the immediate problems that he argued may weaken the capabilities of the UN and have "redefined the imperative for multilateral action".
He listed the Covid-19 pandemic, climate and "biodiversity crises" such as the locust invasion, tensions between powerful member states, economic inequalities and what he called the crisis of legitimacy and governance in a digital world.
Avoid frustrations
Given the new realities and lessons from the campaigns, some experts say Kenya must now pick on achievables from its own list to avoid frustrations.
“There is no place in the world at the moment which is as hot as the Horn of Africa geopolitically. It presents a unique agenda. So how should Kenya go about it?" posed Dr Hassan Khannenje, the Director of the Horn Institute of International Strategic Studies in Nairobi, at a forum in Nairobi.
He spoke before diplomatic relations between Kenya and Somalia broke in December. He, however, indicated that regional neighbours have recently chosen policies that directly rival Kenya’s.
“Kenya should help resolve the Nile dispute. It is a prime-time crisis," he suggested, referring to an impasse between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt over the filling of the Grand Ethiopia Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile. The Nile issue did not feature on Kenya’s campaigns, however, and experts think Nairobi may have been clever to avoid it at the time.
Less influence
The non-permanent seat may not be as influential as the permanent ones, which have veto powers. But Kenya has said it will go for a "rules-based international system", which it argues are needed for the UN to "transcend our challenges and secure lasting peace and prosperity for all".
In its contest against Djibouti, however, the issue of rules and adherence to them came up. Djibouti ran despite losing an AU endorsement. There are those who think the UN Security Council contest tested Africa's solidarity and whether its future rules will be respected.
President Kenyatta’s UN speech suggested Kenya will continue with "meaningful triangular" consultations between the UN and the AU to find a solution on immediate problems such as sustenance of combat forces in Somalia.
"It has been our experience that cooperation among various stakeholders, a clarity of mandate, appropriate training and equipping of troops…as well as periodic review of the effectiveness of missions, greatly strengthens peace-keeping operations."
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