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Two years after its inception, Kenya's Centre for Peace and Applied Research (CEPAR) in Wajir Province is gaining domestic and international recognition as a leader in conflict resolution.

The centre has recorded 30 years of best practices in conflict resolution employed by Wajir communities, sharing them to help achieve sustainable peace in North Eastern Province and providing them as a model for other communities to emulate, according to CEPAR director Hussein Adan Mohamud.

"Until early this year, the centre was not known beyond Wajir in North Eastern Province," Mohamud told Sabahi. "But for the past five months, it has been attracting people from other parts of the country and the world keen on researching and studying the conflict resolution mechanisms employed by [Wajir] residents to end more than 20 years of tribal conflict."

Besides attracting citizens and government authorities from the Rift Valley and eastern provinces that experience tribal conflicts, the centre has also attracted foreign government delegations and civilians from Ethiopia, Somalia, Cambodia, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda and the United States, Mohamud said.

"At the beginning of the year, the centre would receive fewer than five visitors per month, but since March, the figure has increased to an average of 30 people every month," he said.

Visitors learn interactively through seminars and by engaging with local communities. "We felt the knowledge and the initiatives created by Wajir communities in solving conflict must be carried forward and institutionalised," Mohamud said. "Now we are attracting people who want to learn from us."

The centre was started by founders from the Wajir Peace and Development Agency (WPDA), which was instrumental in ending the tribal conflicts that rocked Wajir in the 1980s. The WPDA formed peace committees comprising elders, youths, women, religious leaders and government authorities in every village to monitor conflicts and respond promptly to avert full-scale clashes.

The WPDA also engages in educational activities to stem extremism, such as constructing North Eastern Province's first university and educating parents on warning signs that their children may by falling in with the wrong crowd.

CEPAR has ties with the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies in Cambodia, the Academy for Peace and Development in Hargeisa, the University of Hargeisa and Eastern Mennonite University in the United States, Mohamud said. The research institution plans to start documenting how conflicts are resolved in other parts of the world as well, he said.

Visitors to the centre told Sabahi they were impressed by the peace initiatives and intend to replicate the lessons when they return to their own regions and countries.

Samuel Toroitich Abus, a member of the Keiyo South District Peace Committee in Rift Valley Province, told Sabahi that everyone has a role in ensuring harmony among diverse tribes. "Even youths and women have indispensable roles in peace initiatives," he said.

Joseph Rotuk, a member of the Kericho District Peace Committee in Rift Valley Province, told Sabahi he has learnt very useful lessons at CEPAR. He said Rift Valley committees are modelled after the committees in Wajir, with a diverse group involved in peace initiatives.

"I learnt that peace involves dialogue and compromise," he said. "No matter how one is aggrieved, someone has to give ground for the sake of peaceful co-existence. It is an educational process."