Late June, Executive Director of HRH Maria Dahle and Project Manager Niels Jacob Harbitz visited Nairobi to catch up on the efforts to establish a Human Rights House in the Kenyan capital. In the course of the meetings between the two representatives of the Oslo Secretariat and the seven organisations on the Interim Board (IB) of the emerging Human Rights House in Nairobi, it became clear that both recent political events in Kenya and the IB´s own efforts have brought a Kenyan Human Rights House much closer to reality. 

Since the general elections on December 27th 2002, the human rights situation seems to have improved in a number of areas. However, since there is still plenty of room for improvement, and new governments always need to be monitored carefully and held accountable by a vivid civil society, not the least on human rights issues, the end of long-serving Daniel Arap Moi´s regime does not mean that the struggle for human rights has come to an end, too. Instead, now is the time to join forces and make the most of the window of opportunity that the new government seems to represent. Its commitment to human rights is such that several among the new MPs and even a few ministers are recruited from the human rights NGO sector. 

This commitment was reconfirmed already on the 12th of February, when Hon. Kiraitu, the new Minister of  Justice and Constitutional Affairs, stated, first in a meeting with the Kenyan Human Rights Network, then on national TV, that his government was in the process of reclaiming land illegitimately given away during former President Moi´s regime and that he saw no problem with donating one of these reclaimed plots to the Kenyan Human Rights House. Since the Minister hasn´t come back to this since, the IB has now requested another meeting to hear where the issue stands.

Meanwhile, many more approaches have been made to raise the remaining funds to meet the 100 per cent mark and thus be ready to embark on the actual construction phase. Although no final decisions have been made, both the IB and the Oslo Secretariat have received such positive signals from potential donors that we remain optimistic about raising the remaining funds before the end of the 2003. (22-08-03)