Uchaguzi Background

What is Uchaguzi:

Uchaguzi is an Ushahidi deployment to monitor the Kenyan general election on March 4th 2013.

Aim:

The aim of Uchaguzi is to help Kenya have a free, fair, peaceful, and credible general election in 2013.

Strategy:

Increase transparency and accountability through active citizen participation in the electoral cycles. Uchaguzi mobilises citizens to be directly involved in protecting their vote and electoral process. For Uchaguzi the electoral process is a permanent and recurrent cycle, in which every stage, and not just the Election Day, counts.

How:

Strategy is implemented through a broad network of civil society around Uchaguzi as the national citizen-centred electoral observation platform that responds to citizen observations. Uchaguzi is coordinated through uchaguzi.co.ke which enables citizens to report, with any technology available to them, any incidences significant to the election.

The aim of Uchaguzi is to help Kenya have a free, fair, peaceful, and credible general election in 2013.

Significance of Kenya 2013:

Kenya will be holding its first election since the new (2010) constitution. Ushahidi started with the post-election violence in 2008. Since that time, we have deployed for the Ushahidi post-election violence in 2008 and the 2010 Kenya Constitution. Last fall, the Standby Task Force collaborated with the Ushahidi team as a simulation for 3 constituency by-elections.

Ushahidi has built partnerships with local civil society organizations, official NGOs, governments and PACT (local election monitoring groups.). We will be launching for the Kenya elections. There is an expectation that there may be some election-related disturbances.

The key Uchaguzi partnerships are:

OFFICIAL PARTNER: Constitution & Reform Education Consortium (CRECO) - 1160 people deployed - 4 per constituency (they are part of
Election Observers Group(ELOG) )
OFFICIAL PARTNER: SODNET - Coordinate Uchaguzi Partnerships
OFFICIAL PARTNER: HIVOS - Dutch organization for development - Uchaguzi has received funding from CIDA (see below) these funds are administered by Hivos. Uchaguzi falls under Hivos's Expression & Engagement Programme which is concerned with the space for citizen engagement in social processes has been expanded, resulting in social debate and cultural dialogue.
OFFICIAL PARTNER: Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) - funding of USD 260,000 for the Uchaguzi Project and for research project - these funds are administered by Hivos as indicated above.
OFFICIAL PARTNER: Peacenet - umbrella body of around 30 CSOs working on peace at the grassroots level.
The National Youth Bunge Association (NYBA) - activating it's network of 300,000 members most in key hotspots
The National Youth Summit - 3000 members across the country
National Steering Committee for Peace and Security (NSC) - interagency committee that seeks to strengthen, co-ordinate, and integrate various conflict management initiatives, the government and civil society organizations (CSOs). NSC is our link to law enforcement agencies and government bodies such as IEBC.
Diplomatic Observer Groups: We are cooperating with Diplomatic Observers coordinated through the US Embassy. They will be watching our map for incidents across the country. They will share the deployment of their observers for verification purposes, they are available for high level response if we need to reach someone deep in government.

NOTE: Official partners will have backend access to the platform via trained participants during Uchaguzi. We will work with them for verification and feedback. They are not given veto rights over content. Unofficial partners are welcome to send information to the platform. They are not provided backend access to the platform. We may work with partners to verify and provide feedback to the platform.

THE NSC *May* have view rights to the platform for approved reports that have been amplified and require action. We will not be giving them backend access or veto rights.

The Kenyan Elections are scheduled for March 4, 2013.

More Details about the Kenyan Election:

Here is a backgrounder on Using Ushahidi for Elections

These resources and background are to assist Uchaguzi Digital Teams learn more about the political landscape. These resources will also assist the Media Monitoring, verification and reports team in their Uchaguzi work. Please edit freely adding content and context.