The National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) and Interpeace will on Wednesday, 12 November 2014, sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), aimed at facilitating joint collaboration in peacebuilding work, at the Nairobi Serena Hotel at 6.00 PM.

The MOU will be signed by Hon. Francis Ole Kaparo, Chairman of the NCIC, and the Interpeace Director for Eastern and Central Africa (ECA), Johan Svensson, in the presence of President John Kufuor, former President of Ghana and Chairman of the Interpeace Governing Council. The signing ceremony will form part of the activities around the Interpeace Governing Council’s November 2014 visit to Nairobi.

The NCIC and Interpeace first established contact in 2011, gradually evolving their relationship into an envisioned partnership in which Interpeace will share its two decades of technical experience in peace building with the NCIC – a commission with a national mandate of promoting peaceful co-existence among people of different ethnic groups in Kenya . The signing of this MOU will formalise the NCIC’s partnership with Interpeace and pave way for collaboration in a pilot peacebuilding project in Mandera, a County in North Eastern Kenya that faces critical development and security challenges.

The NCIC is a government agency created to address and reduce inter-ethnic conflicts. Its mandate includes advocating for cohesiveness among the diverse groups in the country and the prevention of discrimination on the basis of ethnicity. The Commission seeks to achieve deliberate normative, institutional and attitudinal processes of constructing nationhood, national cohesion and integration as an avenue towards lasting peace, sustainable development and harmonious coexistence among the Kenyan people.

Interpeace is an independent, international peacebuilding organisation created by the United Nations in 1994 as a peacebuilding pilot project. In 2000 the project transitioned to an independent non-profit organisation, maintaining a strategic partnership with the United Nations. Chaired by Ghana's former President John Kufuor, Interpeace currently supports peacebuilding initiatives in 21 countries and territories across Africa, Asia, Central America, Europe and the Middle East. The Interpeace regional office for East and Central Africa, based in Nairobi since 2006, supports peacebuilding efforts in Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Somali Region.

Contacts avec les médias :
Philip Emase, Communications Officer ( Eastern & Central Africa ) - Interpeace
Tel: +254 72 280 1966
Email: emase@interpeace.org

Sellah King'oro, Assistant Director – Research, Policy and Planning, NCIC
Tel: +254 72 439 0819
Email: skingoro@cohesion.or.ke