A high-ranking US State Department official is visiting Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda to discuss strategies for preventing terrorism.
Sarah Sewall, the Undersecretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy and Human Rights, is expected to meet Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaissery in Nairobi.
The meeting is a follow-up to last month’s White House Summit to Counter Violent Extremism.
Mr Nkaiserry led a Kenyan delegation to the three-day session in Washington attended by ministers from 60 nations. The ministers discussed ways of dissuading youth from joining groups such as the Al-Shabaab.
Ms Sewall’s tour comes amidst growing concerns over Al-Shabaab’s recruitment of Kenyan youth to carry out attacks.
She will travel to Mombasa to meet political, religious, security and civil-society leaders.
The State Department said on Friday that the tour will start on March 12 to 20.
RADICAL GROUPS
In Tanzania, she will visit a US-funded youth centre that offers “job training and community integration program for former gang members vulnerable to the appeal of radical groups,” the State Department said.
In Uganda, Ms Sewall will lead the US delegation to a meeting of the Global Counterterrorism Forum’s Horn of Africa working group.
She is also expected to affirm US support for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Ugandans in meetings in Kampala with civil-society leaders.
The counterterrorism tour of East Africa seeks to extend the White House Summit’s approach of responding to the threat of terrorist violence with “soft-power” mechanisms.
The aim is to offer potential recruits alternatives to the appeal of militant groups by involving them in nonviolent activities and organisations in their home areas.
Participants of the Summit “reaffirmed that intelligence gathering, military force, and law enforcement alone will not solve — and when misused can in fact exacerbate — the problem of violent extremism,” a summary of State Department talks stated.
