06/12/2024
Last Friday, HiiL Innovation Hub EA in partnership with Dispute Resolution Hub and the Court Annexed Mediation (CAM) of the Judiciary held the Jenga Haki Festival 2024 themed ‘Accelerating Resolution of Family & Commercial Disputes through Tech-enabled Mediation’.
The event had insightful panel discussions by mediation, arbitration and tech experts on scaling mediation in family disputes and scaling arbitration and mediation in commercial disputes in Kenya. We also had presentations from judiciary representatives by Lady Justice Anna Mwaure and Hon. Alberty Lesootia on the Opportunities in Private Mediation through successes seen in Kenya's Court Annexed Mediation (CAM). There was also a collaborative co-creation session between mediators, arbitrators, tech developers, entrepreneurs and judiciary representatives to develop technology-enabled solutions that could help scale mediation in family and commercial dispute resolution.
It was apparent from the panel discussions and presentations at the event that;
- Mediation has great potential in resolving more family and commercial disputes in Kenya more expeditiously, cost-effectively and preserving personal and business relationships.
- There is a need to increase access to mediators and arbitrators by training more mediators and arbitrators across the country through accredited mediation and arbitration training partners.
- There is an opportunity to sensitize the public more to the successes of mediation and encourage them to use it to resolve their family and commercial disputes.
- There is an opportunity to scale mediation across Kenya and outside the country's borders by leveraging innovative technology-enabled mediation and arbitration solutions.
- There is an opportunity to support the efforts of court-annexed mediation through more judiciary champions and funding support from funding partners.
We are grateful to all who participated in the event. Together we can scale alternative dispute resolution mechanisms through more awareness in the community on mediation and arbitration, training and marketing more mediators & arbitrators, driving innovations to make them more accessible and policy as well as funding support to scale these ADR mechanisms.
