Kenya has cautioned that if countries do not address issues of identity and variety among its citizens, the globe will be insecure.
This threat has prompted Nairobi to include a high-level open debate on peacebuilding and how diversity affects the search for peace in war zones on its October agenda.
President Uhuru Kenyatta will attend the meeting in New York for the first time as President of the United Nations Security Council in October.
Kenya believes that the majority of today’s global issues can be linked back to everyone’s sense of belonging.
In common parlance, identity is seen as a feeling of belonging to a particular group, say religion, tribe, race or economic class. Diversity is how policies address the concerns of each group, to ensure there is equity in resource sharing and to prevent exclusion. No country in the world has achieved this, although some have performed better than others, Kenya argues.
A concept note shared with the media on Monday said global problems ranging from terrorism, rebel movements, tribal clashes over natural resources as well as ethnic balkanisation have been caused or fueled by a sense of exclusion by particular groups of people.
It says that while the UN has tried to deal with challenges of human rights and equality, “there is an escalation in the dangers from this challenge (of diversity) because interlinked crises are prompting more people to utilise, and sometimes weaponise diversity as a way to respond to the disorienting changes from the economic crises.”
