Understanding the foundations of Kenya’s public benefits and civil society sector is essential for appreciating the freedoms, protections, and civic spaces that organisations and citizens engage with today. The development of the sector did not occur in isolation; it emerged through decades of organising, advocacy, resistance, and collective action by individuals and institutions committed to social justice, democratic reform, and public accountability. The evolution from tightly controlled civic engagement during the one-party era to the broader recognition of public benefit organisations (PBOs) reflects the resilience of civil society in shaping Kenya’s constitutional and governance landscape.
In May 2026, during the PBO Week 2026, ARTICLE 19 spoke to Ambassador Elkanah Odembo, a distinguished civil society leader who played a significant role in the growth and institutional development of Kenya’s non-governmental organisation (NGO) sector. In this interview, Ambassador Odembo shares firsthand his experiences of the struggle for democratic reforms, the emergence of NGO coordination structures, the formation of the NGO Council, constitutional reform processes, and the evolution of civic organising both in Kenya and across the East African region.
An edited version of the interview with Ambassador Odembo follows below.
ARTICLE 19 Eastern Africa is part of the Kenya Non-Profit Organizations Working Group (NPOWG) on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a multi-stakeholder platform that brings together civil society organisations and sector actors to engage on issues relating to anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) measures and their impact on civic space. The Working Group’s main objective is to promote a balanced, risk-based, and rights-respecting approach to regulation that safeguards the integrity of the non-profit sector while protecting freedoms of association, expression, and civic participation in Kenya.
As part of ongoing sector engagement and dialogue, the Kenya NPO Working Group convened a panel discussion during the PBO Week 2026, bringing together regulators, government institutions, and civil society representatives in Kenya to discuss regulatory trends, compliance obligations, challenges facing the sector, and opportunities for strengthening collaboration between the state and public benefit organisations.
Today, the public benefits system continues to play a critical role in advancing human rights, community development, humanitarian response, governance reforms, and citizen participation. However, contemporary challenges relating to regulation, shrinking civic space, accountability, sustainability, and state-civil society relations demonstrate the importance of understanding the sector’s historical foundations. Reflecting on these experiences offers important lessons for current and future civil society actors on the value of solidarity, organised advocacy, institutional independence, and citizen-centred engagement.
Interview with Ambassador Elkanah Odembo (edited)
ARTICLE 19: How did the one-party political system in Kenya influence the emergence of civil society activism and the push for the repeal of Section 2A?
Elkanah Odembo: Section 2A of the 1963 Constitution of Kenya formally made Kenya a one-party state by recognising the Kenya African National Union (KANU) as the only lawful political party in the country. Introduced in 1982, the provision significantly limited political pluralism, democratic participation, and freedom of association by restricting opposition politics and consolidating state power under a single party system.
Agitation was brewing against a government that was able to do wrong and illegal things because it was a one-party state; there was no opposition and no space for dissent.
ARTICLE 19: How did your work with communities shape your journey into civil society and human rights advocacy?
Elkanah Odembo: My career in the NGO world started in 1983 when I started working with the African Medical Research Foundation. I came face to face with poverty and it was my entry point into civil society and into the work that I subsequently did in community organising, community development policy, human rights.
I was able to see first-hand how people’s lives had been impacted by the levels of poverty, the just absolute lack of dignity in communities, in people’s lives. And the poverty was manifested in the lack of access to the sort of basic needs that we subsequently fought hard for at Bomas [the complex where the first constitution was drafted] to incorporate in the Kenyan Constitution: Chapter 4 – basic needs such as basic rights, water issues, access to health and healthcare, education, food, and so forth.
So that’s where I started feeling very restless and uncomfortable with what I saw then as an unfair system and an unfair society where the basic needs of people – of our people, our citizens – not being provided for by the government.
ARTICLE 19: How did NGOs and civil society groups begin organising and building collective momentum during the 1980s?
Elkanah Odembo: We were, in the 1980s, just loose networks, groups of organisations, and a lot of it really individuals who were in this sector, and then starting to also organise and mobilise other NGOs in the sector to join in asking the government these fundamental questions about basic services and basic needs for citizens.
We had enough momentum by the late 1980s for networking and working together, and to develop, standing on a common platform and speaking with one voice. There was sufficient momentum that carried us into 1988-89, when the government started thinking about controlling the sector, because there was now agitation for repeal of Section 2A.
So the NGO Act of 1990 was designed specifically to manage NGOs and civil society, who were perceived to be part of that agitation that the government, the KANU regime, was not happy about. The then NGO bill gave us, in my opinion, the first opportunity to really rally the sector and to bring the sector together.
By the time of the Inter-Parties’ Parliamentary Group (IPPG) of 1997, civil society and NGOs were working very closely with the political parties and saying: it is not enough to have multi-partism – there is need to change, fundamentally, the constitution of Kenya. So this is now the beginning of the struggle for a new constitution.
ARTICLE 19: How did the introduction of the NGO Act of 1990 affect the relationship between the government and civil society organisations? Why was the establishment of the NGO Council important for the civil society sector in Kenya?
Elkanah Odembo: We agitated for there to be, within this law, an NGO council, a body that is managed and run by the NGOs themselves, a self-regulating organisation. The first elections were in 1994 and I was later elected as the chair of the NGO Council from 1994 up to 1998.
At these meetings, things were always very tense at the beginning. But with time, a year into the existence of the NGO Coordination Board, we had come to terms with the fact that we represent different sectors, we represent different interests, but that we could work together. The tensions were still there, but we were able to then conduct business on the board with a government that looked at us and held us in suspicion. They were seeing the lot of us who were sitting on that board as just as Kenyan as they were and just as patriotic. And we would sometimes even tell them that we were more patriotic than they were in terms of our love and our belief in Kenya. So the working on the board progressively got better.
When Wangari Maathai’s Green Belt Movement was to be registered, that application was denied on account of there were too many NGOs working on environmental issues. So that gives you an example of the challenges. We would fight tooth and nail on that board and we prevailed, I think, almost all the time to justify why a particular NGO should be registered.
ARTICLE 19: What inspired the formation of regional civil society collaboration within the East Africa Community framework?
Elkanah Odembo: We were seeing our neighbours, Uganda and Tanzania, going through similar things. So we started interacting and engaging with them. And that’s where the idea of an East African regional body, an organisation for the sector, came in – that momentum for making sure that within the East African community space, that political arena, there was also space for citizens to participate. This was the case that we were making for why the NGO and civil society sector should have an official space, an observer status at the East African community. We did not succeed, but I’ve always felt that that was a lost opportunity, and something that I think those who are there now, PBOs, should pursue again – look at what’s happening within the East African community, recent events, elections across the countries and the things that you see happening to civil society leaders.
ARTICLE 19: Why is it important for civil society organisations to have a stronger voice and presence within the East African Community?
Elkanah Odembo: Because of the kinds of things that we saw happening last year when major events were taking place in different countries in the region. Really, the voice of civil society, this idea that individual civil society leaders can be arrested and be marginalised, to me, is extremely painful. It should not be allowed to happen. And the only way to stop that is to have strong organisations that have a regional mandate and a regional outlook, a regional concern that occupies prominent spaces. Nobody hands those spaces over to you. You insist on occupying those spaces. So today, the East African community, with the eight countries that we have, I don’t see a strong civil society presence within that body. It is still a playground for eight presidents. When one of them decides that they are not getting along with another head of state, everything at the East African community comes to a standstill. And that’s unacceptable. We should not leave the welfare and the lives of these 300 million plus people – 400 million now – in the hands of a handful of politicians.
ARTICLE 19: What key lessons and messages would you share with the next generation of civil society leaders and organisations?
Elkanah Odembo: Don’t ever lose sight of the need to organise. Organise, organise, organise.
And then secondly is the need to keep an eye on the big picture. Asking those ‘why’ questions: why is this happening? Why is that happening?
Thirdly, the need for solidarity. No leader or organisation should work in isolation. That critical mass of people and organisations agitating together is ultimately what determines the impact of the work that we have as a civil society.