Fundraising Goal
Kenya is set to hold a general election on 9 August 2022. Kenyan elections are often violent so we are preparing as soon as possible to help people preserve peace and navigate dangerous situations. We need your support to succeed.
Set against a history of election violence, Kenya has a range of risk factors that threaten conflict in 2022. The incumbent president has reached his term limit and various political factions are aiming to benefit from the coming power shift. Kenyan politics almost always have an ethnic dimension and various parties are likely to manipulate their support bases before, during, and after election day. Combined with low levels of access to reliable information sources, this political landscape is likely to become all the more hazardous with an increase in harmful rumours and misinformation.
We have an opportunity to prevent violence and contribute to a peaceful election in 2022 by expanding our successful Una Hakika project to engage citizens in monitoring, verifying, and countering the spread of harmful rumours and misinformation. We aim to expand Una Hakika to cover 15 of Kenya’s highest-risk counties while also setting up an early warning system to help people navigate dangerous situations and survive violence if it does happen. Seizing this opportunity means getting the support that we need to start working as soon as possible.
We will focus on the following critical activities.
Misinformation Management
Expanding an existing interactive system to engage the public in monitoring, verifying, and countering the spread of harmful rumours and misinformation
Early Warning Mechanism
Establishing a system for monitoring early warning indicators of violence (closely related to the misinformation management system) in order to facilitate localized preventive action and public alerts about active threats
Capacity Building
Training of various actors at all levels to build capacity for recognizing misinformation and indicators of violence risk to inform preventive actions
We aim to reach as many people as possible across Kenya while also prioritizing the areas that appear to be at the highest risk of violence. While the situation will probably remain fluid with various threats evolving as the election approaches, we currently plan to focus on places like the Western Region, Rift Valley, Central Region, Nairobi, and the Coast Region.
