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{
    "id": 440404,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/440404/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 61,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Elachi",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13115,
        "legal_name": "Beatrice Elachi",
        "slug": "beatrice-elachi"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, I beg to move:- THAT, aware that Kenya is fully supportive of United Nations (UN) peacekeeping initiatives and has contributed to many peace keeping operations, both in Africa and beyond; appreciating that the Kenya Defence College offers very high quality training in peace-keeping; concerned, however, that Kenya has missed many opportunities at the United Nations institutions that would enable the UN to benefit from the skills of our well trained officers and through which Kenya would benefit, especially by absorbing qualified military personnel in peace keeping missions; the Senate urges the National Government to strengthen relations with and engage the UN more with a view to ensuring that many young trained Kenyan military personnel get more opportunities to participate in peacekeeping missions. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I have brought to this House this Motion because when you look back when we started working with the UN in 1973, you will find that today the framework that we have does not really relate to the work we are doing. Since the last keeping force that we had in Liberia, Namibia and in the rest of the world, to date, we have not even seen a report from the Department of Defence saying that we only have the Kenya Defence Forces in Somalia. We know that the UN works across the world and we would wish to see a framework that supports young men to go out of the country and be able to participate in peace keeping missions. Today, we have given the UN offices at Gigiri. Most of the time, they benefit more than what the country is benefiting from them. Even when you look at the staffing levels, you will find that the locals are at the low cadre but the high level jobs are held by foreigners. The Government should lobby and ensure that Kenyans also take up those jobs. Therefore, our sisters in Ethiopia are doing so well within the UN system by lobbying their countries. Mr. Speaker, Sir, before I brought the Motion to the House, I thought that it is important for the Senate to also start looking at its framework and strengthening it not just for the UN and the peacekeepers more so that now we are trying to consolidate ourselves to broaden the terms we have in the East African Community (EAC). We should ask ourselves if indeed the EAC is going to succeed. It is important for the UN to come up with a better framework that looks at the region properly. How does Kenya benefit? Does the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have that framework? We also need to understand the policies. We also know that there are so many tenders that come up, do we have Kenyans who participate in them so that they can be able to benefit? Today, we are looking at Sudan and asking ourselves how we can engage in a constructive manner to ensure that what is happening in South Sudan can stop so that our brothers there can move on. As much as we have the KDF soldiers in Somalia being part of the AMISOM, how many soldiers do we have there and why does Ethiopia have more soldiers there than us? Is it because our framework is not in consonance with what they want? Is it just joining the AMISOM as KDF or we could also have other personnel coming in with different experiences and skills to offer to the UN peacekeeping mission? When you look at Congo, we had a mission there which is now winding up. I know Kenyans would have participated if we had a way of lobbying the UN peacekeeping missions to ensure that they integrate some Kenyans in some of their programmes. We are talking about job"
}