The 2030 Agenda: supporting a more peaceful, just and inclusive society in Kenya

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has great potential to support Kenyan efforts to create a more peaceful, just and inclusive society. Its holistic vision of peace provides a comprehensive framework for addressing the various drivers of conflict and violence which have long undermined Kenya’s development progress.

Kenya played a key role in the process leading to the agreement of the 2030 Agenda, and its leaders have expressed commitment to implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Peace is a cross-cutting theme of the 2030 Agenda; Goal 16 specifically includes targets on issues such as access to justice, violence reduction and inclusive governance.

This report illustrates how Goal 16 can be leveraged to build a more peaceful, just and inclusive society in Kenya through the use of existing national development and peacebuilding frameworks, strategies and institutions. Kenya has an extensive institutional architecture for addressing issues of peace and conflict, as well as structures established for the Millennium Development Goals which can be used to coordinate SDG implementation and reporting across government and stakeholders including civil society networks.

However, even with effective alignment of Goal 16 with strategies and plans, the success or failure of the 2030 Agenda will ultimately depend on political will to address the issues contained within it. In order to help generate political buy-in, there must be action by all relevant stakeholders, including:

  • Mapping priority SDG targets against existing national priorities
  • Raising awareness of the 2030 Agenda’s commitment to peace
  • Working with data-producers on developing national indicators for Goal 16
  • Supporting stakeholders to take part in monitoring efforts

Download The 2030 agenda: Supporting a more peaceful, just and inclusive society in Kenya

Read more about our work on the Sustainable Development Goals.

“There is scope for alignment of the 2030 Agenda with specific peace-related national strategies, notably the National Policy on Peace Building and Conflict Management.”

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