Donor responses to the 2008 Kenyan crisis: Finally getting it right?

Abstract

This contribution analyses Western governments’ responses to the 2008 Kenyan crisis. It argues that while donors’ reactions to the crisis were a vast improvement over their responses to previous elections and eruptions of political violence, they failed to learn some important lessons from the past and take a more proactive role in preventing violence, notably because they disregarded key governance problems that made violence easily imaginable, if not utterly predictable. Moreover, by focusing on ending the violence as quickly as possible, donors placed greater priority on peace than on justice or democracy, a trade-off that undoubtedly saved many lives but compromises the political reform agenda and carries significant future risks for Kenya and other countries.

Keywords:

• Kenya
• political violence
• donors
• foreign aid
• elections
• democracy
• coalition governments
• power-sharing agreements

Acknowledgements

Fieldwork in Nairobi for this article was made possible by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, via the Université de Montréal, as part of a broader project in collaboration with Marie-Joëlle Zahar on ‘transition violence’ in Africa. The author is also grateful to Rosalind Raddatz for her invaluable research assistance; to Heike Hoffler, Jérôme Lafargue, Roger Southall, Leo Zeilig and one person who preferred to remain anonymous, as well as the participants in a research colloquium at the GIGA Institute of African Affairs (Hamburg), for their helpful suggestions; and to the German Development Institute for hosting him during the writing process.

Notes

1. Interview with Willy Mutunga, Programme Officer, Human Rights and Social Justice, Ford Foundation, Nairobi, 10 December 2008.

2. This corresponds to the general usage of the term in Kenya. Here, I concentrate on bilateral donors, though on occasion also discuss multilateral donors and lenders, such as the United Nations and the World Bank. In 2006-07, the top five providers of official development assistance were the United States ($304 million/year or 27% of total), the United Kingdom ($133 million, 12%), the European Commission ($115 million, 10%), Japan ($113 million, 10%) and World Bank/IDA ($111 million, 10%) (OECD 1009).

3. On the various waves of political violence from 1991 to 2008, see inter alia Akiwumi Commission 1999; Anderson and Lochery 2008; Human Rights Watch 1993; Kagwanja 1998; Maupeu 2008a, b; Mueller 2008.

4. Though they lost the referendum, the status quo was even more advantageous for Kibaki and the government, as it left intact the high concentration of power in the hands of the executive (Whitaker and Giersch 2009, 13).

5. The perpetrators operated with complete impunity. Many senior officials involved remained in the Moi/KANU government and the Kibaki/NARC government that succeeded it; some are prominent in the current PNU/ODM coalition government.

6. Interview with Bo Jensen, Danish ambassador, Nairobi, 8 December 2008. On other ECK warning signs, see Kiai (2008b), 142).

7. Some felt, in retrospect, that it had been serious mistake to channel electoral assistance funds through UNDP because of its close relationship with the government, rather than a more neutral organisation such as International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), whose assistance with computerisation the government had refused (unattributable interview, Nairobi, December 2008; see also Kiai 2008a, 165; Kiai 2008b, 142). Others faulted UNDP for poor management of the domestic election observers (interview with François Grignon, Africa Program Director, International Crisis Group, Nairobi, 4 December 2008; interview with a Western embassy official, Nairobi, December 2008). UNDP's close ties with the government gravely compromised its response to state-induced political violence in the early 1990s (Brown 2003; Human Rights Watch 1997).

8. Interview with a European embassy official, Nairobi, December 2008.

9. Interview with a European embassy official, Nairobi, December 2008. Western countries had countenanced in recent years a number of elections that failed to meet the standard of free and fair, including in Ethiopia, Nigeria and Uganda.

10. I do not wish to underestimate the central role of African mediation efforts (see Lindenmayer and Kaye, n.d.; Litscher 2008). My focus here, rather, is specifically on the role of Western donors. For that reason, I also pay insufficient attention to the role of Kenyan civil society, which warrants further study.

11. Interview with a European researcher, Nairobi, December 2008. In particular, some donors were worried that an ODM victory could lead to the mass expulsions from the Rift Valley of members of ‘non-indigenous’ ethnic groups – which occurred anyway when Odinga was not declared the winner.

12. US officials deny that the poll was not released for political reasons, invoking instead technical flaws in the data entry and calculations. IRI finally released the results, which gave Odinga a 6% lead, in August 2008, far too late to make a difference. After leaving the organisation, the former head IRI official in Kenya told the New York Times (30 January 2009) that the US ambassador had favoured Kibaki throughout the campaign. See also the IRI website (www.iri.org) and Rothmyer (2008).

13. The New York Times (2 January 2008) reported that the US government, among others, was ‘calling for a vote recount’, but no other indications of this could be found. In fact, much evidence exists to the contrary.

14. Interview with a Western embassy official, Nairobi, December 2008.

15. Interview with Bo Jensen, Danish ambassador, Nairobi, 8 December 2008.

16. Interview with François Grignon, Africa Program Director, International Crisis Group, Nairobi, 4 December 2008.

17. Some felt donors could have expressed greater support for Odinga's position, but they lacked the will to be more forceful. Interview with a Western embassy official, Nairobi, December 2008.

18. Kibaki lived next door to and in fact owned the World Bank representative's residence (Wall Street Journal, 6 March 2008; Wrong 2009, 191, 260).

19. ICG (2008, 1, 22) and interview with François Grignon, Africa Program Director, International Crisis Group, Nairobi, 4 December 2008. See also Guardian (10 and 11 January 2008). The other two members of the AU's Panel of Eminent African Personalities were Benjamin Mkapa, former president of Tanzania and Graça Machel, former Minister of Education of Mozambique and First Lady of both Mozambique and South Africa.

20. Interview with a European ambassador, Nairobi, December 2008.

21. ICG (2008, 23). Some civil society organisations opposed power sharing, calling for new elections. Donors considered this impractical while the violence was ongoing. Interview with Willy Mutunga, Programme Officer, Human Rights and Social Justice, Ford Foundation, Nairobi, 10 December 2008. One could argue that once Odinga renounced his claim to the presidency and sought instead the position of prime minister, donors had no choice but to support power sharing. Others would argue that donors had played a key role in convincing Odinga to drop his claim of being the rightful president, which would never prove acceptable to the PNU.

22. Interview with Bo Jensen, Danish ambassador, Nairobi, 8 December 2008.

23. Interview with a European embassy official, Nairobi, December 2008; Embassy of Denmark (2008); European Union (2008); Financial Times (18 February 2008).

24. Interview with a European embassy official, Nairobi, December 2008. Article 96 of the Cotonou Agreement between the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific countries stipulates that co-operation may be suspended in cases of egregious violations of human rights, democratic principles or the rule of law, but only as a last resort, after other efforts to find a solution have failed.

25. Interview with a European ambassador, Nairobi, December 2008. Such a visa ban would apply to the borderless ‘Schengen Area’ of Europe, rather than to the European Union per se.

26. Rice stated, ‘I am disappointed by the failure of leadership necessary to resolve all the remaining issues… I want to emphasise that the future of our relationship with both sides and their legitimacy hinges on their co-operation to achieve this political solution. In that regard, we are exploring a wide range of possible actions’ (Washington Post, 27 February 2008).

27. Interview with a European researcher, Nairobi, December 2008.

28. Unattributable interview, Nairobi, December 2008; interview with a Western embassy official, Nairobi, December 2008.

29. Interview with Bo Jensen, Danish ambassador, Nairobi, 8 December 2008.

30. Unattributable interview, Nairobi, December 2008.

31. Interview with a Bo Jensen, Danish ambassador, Nairobi, 8 December 2008.

32. Interview with Mugambi Kiai, Programme Officer, Open Society Initiative for East Africa, Nairobi, 10 December 2008. See also Maina Kiai (2008a, 165-66).

33. Interview with François Grignon, Africa Program Director, International Crisis Group, Nairobi, 4 December 2008.

34. Interview with a European ambassador and a European embassy official, Nairobi, December 2008.

35. Interview with a European embassy official, Nairobi, December 2008; Daily Nation, 19 September 2008 and 17 November 2008.

36. ‘Statement of Principles on Long-term issues and solutions’, 23 May 2008. Internet, www.dialoguekenya.org/docs/S_of_P_with_Matrix.pdf (accessed 11 March 2009).

37. Interview with a European embassy official, Nairobi, December 2008.

38. Interview with Willy Mutunga, Programme Officer, Human Rights and Social Justice, Ford Foundation, Nairobi, 10 December 2008.

39. Interview with Bo Jensen, Danish ambassador, Nairobi, 8 December 2008. The aid figures are taken from OECD (2009), which also indicates that aid accounts for about 4% of Kenya's gross national income. According to Wrong (2009, 184) – although she does not cite her source - aid as a proportion of the government budget has declined dramatically from 45% in the early 1990s to about 5% today, due mainly to ‘improved tax collection’. The size and nature of Chinese assistance to Kenya have not been made public.

40. Unattributable interview, Nairobi, December 2008. It is worth noting that PNU supporters were also armed and would likely have reacted violently to the declaration of an Odinga victory. A similar scenario would probably have played out, with the roles reversed. Donors should therefore have been more proactive before the elections to avoid violence, rather than relying on the Electoral Commission's to lend legitimacy to the results, whatever they turned out to be.

41. Interview with Mugambi Kiai, Programme Officer, Open Society Initiative for East Africa, Nairobi, 10 December 2008.

42. Interview with Bo Jensen, Danish ambassador, Nairobi, 8 December 2008.

43. Interview with a Western embassy official, Nairobi, December 2008.

44. The lack of a sunset clause in the power-sharing agreement or even a stipulation of what happens if one side pulls out strengthens Kibaki and the PNU's hand, providing them with no incentive to accommodate the ODM. As Odinga and ODM officials grow increasingly dissatisfied with their share of power, they have limited options. Withdrawing from the collation would have the effect of voluntarily handing all power back to the PNU. The National Accord includes no mechanism to trigger fresh elections before 2012.