Women’s peace work is not a side agenda.It is THE Agenda!
Against the Nairobi skyline, Act! through the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Programme funded by the Embassy of Denmark in Kenya, supported the National Steering Committee (NSC) on Women, Peace & Security in convening its quarterly coordination meeting bringing together the State Department for Gender Affairs & Affirmative Action (SDGAA), National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC), the National Police Service – Kenya, The National Gender and Equality Commission-Kenya(NGEC) , Inter-Religious Council of Kenya (IRCK), Rural Women Peace Link, Kenya Coalition on Youth, Peace and Security and grassroots peacebuilders under one roof.
Backed by Denmark in Kenya, the meeting was a candid audit of where Kenya stands on KNAP III and UNSCR 1325, and where it is falling short.
Twenty-five years after UNSCR 1325 placed women at the centre of peace and security, the conversations in that room refused to be polite. Partners named what data and lived experience confirm: Kenya’s hate speech law, still rooted in ethnic discrimination, offers no legal shield against gender-based cyberbullying, online harassment, or political targeting of women in leadership.
Meanwhile, 611 gender desks and 1,363 trained officers exist on paper yet survivor referral pathways still collapse at the last mile, and County Action Plans remain chronically underfunded and gathering dust.
Clarion calls from the room pointed to a need for:

📌 Permanent national and county dedicated budget lines for GBV response and women-led peace work for institutionalisation of responses and sustainability.
📌 Amendment of hate speech definitions to protect women from digital and political violence, not just ethnic targeting.
📌 Walking the survivor’s journey, auditing of GBV referral pathways from the community to the courtroom, and fixing every broken step.
📌 The need to broaden participation beyond the “converted” by intentionally engaging county executives, emerging local structures, and men as credible allies.

The WPS Coordination agenda in Kenya needs more hands on deck, localisation of the CAPs by further translating them into local dialects, and strategic linkages; with the County engaging strategically with the Council of Governors for sufficient buy-in and collaboration with the national government. With 2027 closer than it looks, election preparedness, women mediator training and the ‘Enhancing Accountability in the WPS Agenda Initiative’ are essential.
Act! is proud to support the infrastructure that keeps this agenda honest and the conversations moving forward.