Supporting political parties in Kenya to include people with disabilities

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Supporting political parties in Kenya to include people with disabilities

WFD’s work with Kenyan political parties, funded by Demo Finland, helped ensure persons with disabilities (PWDs) are included in political parties’ governing committees. It also helped to remove barriers so they could actively engage in the contestation of elections ahead of the Kenyan general elections in August 2022.

WFD was very excited that nine of Kenya’s political parties launched Disability Leagues during the last year. The political parties also instituted provisions in their internal documents such as constitutions, manifestos, and nomination regulations that promote PWDs’ inclusion.

11 PWD candidates who took part in the KIPP programme were cleared by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to contest the August 9th 2022 elections. WFD also supported the formation of a vibrant technical working group (TWG) that is actively pushing the disability inclusion agenda and we facilitated the development and adoption of a minimum standards guide on the inclusion of PWDs within political parties. After WFD’s efforts to strengthen relationships between political parties and disabled persons’ organisations, we have documented seven instances of informal partnerships and engagements between the two.

Political parties are keen to learn and improve and we saw a growth in interest in the programme: five additional parties joined the initial 11 taking part in the programme to increase the number of partner political parties to 16.