Donor responses to the 2008 Kenyan crisis: Finally getting it right?

Abstract

This contribution analyses Western governments' responses to the 2008 Kenyan crisis. It argues that while donors' reactions to the crisis were a vast improvement over their responses to previous elections and eruptions of political violence, they failed to learn some important lessons from the past and take a more proactive role in preventing violence, notably because they disregarded key governance problems that made violence easily imaginable, if not utterly predictable. Moreover, by focusing on ending the violence as quickly as possible, donors placed greater priority on peace than on justice or democracy, a trade-off that undoubtedly saved many lives but compromises the political reform agenda and carries significant future risks for Kenya and other countries.