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Pastoral counties in northern Kenya are expected to undergo massive social-ecological change in the coming years as a result of the government's 'Vision 2030' with its large-scale investments and infrastructure projects. The Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) corridor project is an ambitious infrastructure development project that links with other continental transport corridors traversing the country. The 500m-wide corridor is to consist of a railway, a highway, a fibre-optic cable and a crude oil pipeline, linking oil fields in Turkana county in the far north-west to a 32-berth port at Lamu on the Kenyan coast. A 50-km wide "special economic zone" straddling the corridor will attract investors, and the development will be accompanied by several associated projects, including three planned resort cities, oil processing facilities and airports. Proponents of the corridor point to its potential to "open up the north" and to reverse previous marginalisation. However, a growing body of work on frontiers and economies of anticipation surrounding development projects points to the potentials for dispossession of local populations and disregard of local dynamics. Further, such projects stimulate future-oriented activities and a variety of visions of the future among the different actors, which may converge or diverge, leading to contestations. This Working Paper is part of a larger project called "Future Rural Africa: Future-making and socialecological transformation" by the Universities of Bonn and Cologne and BICC in collaboration with USIU-Africa and other Kenyan universities, which is interested in the kinds of claims being made on land and its resources and how these may change existing dynamics of organised violence. In this Working Paper, the author seeks to understand the dynamics of participation and anticipation and how these relate to conflict and contestation along the LAPSSET Corridor area (in the following referred to as 'LAPSSET'). He takes a broad and in-depth look at local dynamics sur rounding the planned LAPSSET and some associated projects in Isiolo, Samburu and Turkana counties. In doing so, he has found that a variety of actors have different visions and capacities to learn about LAPSSET and position themselves favourably, making it likely that LAPSSET will exacerbate existing political and economic inequalities. Existing inequalities historically run along ethnic lines and are likely to feed into ethnopolitical conflicts. Other findings are that the LAPSSET developments also fuel conflict as they provide new potential targets for dissatisfied citizens to get the attention of the state and new, often inequitable security governance arrangements.

The community-based conservation model is an increasing phenomenon in Kenya, especially in northern pastoralist counties. This Working Paper, the result of empirical research over several years, considers dimensions of inclusion and exclusion and subsequent conflicts around communitybased conservancies in Isiolo County. It finds that conservancies are sometimes established to protect a community’s interests in and access to community land, including formal claim-making over ancestral community land which may spatially exclude other groups. These dimensions are reinforced by the presence of rangers, of whom many are armed National Police Reservists. Spatial and political dimensions of exclusion also exist to some extent within conservancies due to the need to balance wildlife and grazing needs. Armed security forces in conservancies have important implications for state sovereignty and control over the use of force. Importantly, a powerful donor-funded umbrella organisation (the Northern Rangelands Trust) is significantly involved in training, equipping and deploying rangers. The presence of well-equipped armed ranger teams may then inadvertently play into resource-based conflict and alter power balances between ethnic groups as is most clearly highlighted on the Samburu–Isiolo border. Sustainability is another concern where donor funding is an important source. Another concern for the future is Isiolo’s position at the centre of the country’s infrastructural and economic development plans which threaten to dispossess pastoralists of community land. Land claims and conflicts are set to increase, and arms in civilian hands could plausibly be used in various types of conflict, from ethno-political to community-investor and community-state conflicts.

Pastoral counties of northern Kenya are expected to undergo massive change in the coming years due to the government’s ambitious infrastructural development agenda. However, the area frequently experiences violence as a result of conflict between pastoralist communities, and also due to ethno-political contestations. Isiolo County is one such place where planned development projects and conflict risks coincide, making it an important case study for understanding how the future may unfold. This Working Paper is written in the framework of a larger project called “Future Rural Africa: Future-making and social-ecological transformation” by the Universities of Bonn and Cologne and BICC (Bonn International Center for Conversion). BICC is interested in the kinds of claims that are being made on land and its resources and how these may change the existing dynamics of organised violence. The Paper explores the complexity of existing conflict in Isiolo and the emerging effects of new plans and land claims. At its most basic level, conflict between pastoral groups, or between pastoralists and farmers is motivated both by survival (pastoral mobility and access to water and pasture in a climatically challenging area) and the accumulation of livestock wealth. Politics, which is generally extended along ethnic lines, adds another layer to the inter-communal conflict through the need for political survival and the accumulation of personal wealth. The devolution of many powers and budgets to county level since 2013 has then raised the stakes for political power. Since plans for infrastructure have been made known, tensions have emerged, and fears of exclusion and dispossession of customary land users through speculative land-grabbing and uncompensated state acquisition. With Isiolo being a hub of the illicit small arms trade, guns have become a conflict multiplier at every level. The county is highly securitised with several specialised police units. However, they lack capacity and their actions have tended to be either inadequate or overly reactive and their relationship with communities is poor. As a result, day to day security of pastoralist communities and their livestock relies on the rather informal and unprofessional National Police Reserve, who are armed by the state, and community members, who purchase their own arms through illicit markets. Politicians on occasion have also supplied arms and ammunition to communities. The Paper concludes that the various layers of conflict should be considered and addressed simultaneously, and that development is a new and potent factor in conflict at both political and community levels. A careful, inclusive conflict-sensitive approach to development is essential, but this is unlikely to happen if leaders look for personal power and gain.

These 50-60% are found in Africa with largest number found in the North Eastern region. Pastoralism depends largely on the availability and access to water and pasture. However, pastoralism is under threat. This is due to a range of factors including weak governance; inadequate land and resource management policies; political and economic marginalization of pastoral groups. These have been initiated by the colonial regimes and continued by postcolonial governments. Increasingly cattle raids have resulted in insecurity fuelled by the proliferation of small arms and light weapons in pastoral communities. The thesis identifies several factors contributing to pastoral conflicts in North Rift, Northeast Africa (Karamoja, West Pokot, Baragoi, and Do! Dol Mukogodo) These include communal resource conflict at the local, district, national and regional levels.The increase in drought has drastically reduced the amount of water and pasture, available, thus escalating the vicious circle of cattle raids and counter raids. The drought has provoked greater need for movement and made clashes more likely. The situation is made worse by the weak governance or no governance in some areas. Official government structures or institutions of justice are conspicuous by their absence. The deficit has been substituted by a proliferation of vigilante groups of armed youth created either by the government or ad-hoc by the community. In recent years the areas have seen the emergence of local businessmen and warlords, whose economic activities span cattle raiding, small arms sales, drugs and who are at the -centre of incipient regional criminal networks linked to national networks Small arms are not the cause of the pastoral conflict; they have simply intensified the conflict. Since 2001 until now small arms have drastically dropped in cost. But the ammunition prices have tripled due to their scarcity. Small arms in the pastoral areas have since the 1980s negatively impacted the communities. Small arms injuries can be counted like the incidence of any disease, and from the figures it is clear that a public health crisis is mounting as the violence continues. The 5000 victims of gun wounds over 18 months in Nakapiripirit area alone should be viewed as a major problem. No common policy on intervention by the states is available. Attempts at interventions have been poorly coordinated and executed, too often taking a narrow definition of security that has focused on more or less coercive disarmament without focusing sufficiently on providing viable economic alternatives to those whose livelihoods have become dependent on the gun. Finally, traditional structures of authority within communities have been gravely weakened, as have some of the cultural restraints upon violence that operated in the past.

These 50-60% are found in Africa with largest number found in the North Eastern region. Pastoralism depends largely on the availability and access to water and pasture. However, pastoralism is under threat. This is due to a range of factors including weak governance; inadequate land and resource management policies; political and economic marginalization of pastoral groups. These have been initiated by the colonial regimes and continued by postcolonial governments. Increasingly cattle raids have resulted in insecurity fuelled by the proliferation of small arms and light weapons in pastoral communities. The thesis identifies several factors contributing to pastoral conflicts in North Rift, Northeast Africa (Karamoja, West Pokot, Baragoi, and Do! Dol Mukogodo) These include communal resource conflict at the local, district, national and regional levels.The increase in drought has drastically reduced the amount of water and pasture, available, thus escalating the vicious circle of cattle raids and counter raids. The drought has provoked greater need for movement and made clashes more likely. The situation is made worse by the weak governance or no governance in some areas. Official government structures or institutions of justice are conspicuous by their absence. The deficit has been substituted by a proliferation of vigilante groups of armed youth created either by the government or ad-hoc by the community. In recent years the areas have seen the emergence of local businessmen and warlords, whose economic activities span cattle raiding, small arms sales, drugs and who are at the -centre of incipient regional criminal networks linked to national networks Small arms are not the cause of the pastoral conflict; they have simply intensified the conflict. Since 2001 until now small arms have drastically dropped in cost. But the ammunition prices have tripled due to their scarcity. Small arms in the pastoral areas have since the 1980s negatively impacted the communities. Small arms injuries can be counted like the incidence of any disease, and from the figures it is clear that a public health crisis is mounting as the violence continues. The 5000 victims of gun wounds over 18 months in Nakapiripirit area alone should be viewed as a major problem. No common policy on intervention by the states is available. Attempts at interventions have been poorly coordinated and executed, too often taking a narrow definition of security that has focused on more or less coercive disarmament without focusing sufficiently on providing viable economic alternatives to those whose livelihoods have become dependent on the gun. Finally, traditional structures of authority within communities have been gravely weakened, as have some of the cultural restraints upon violence that operated in the past.

These 50-60% are found in Africa with largest number found in the North Eastern region. Pastoralism depends largely on the availability and access to water and pasture. However, pastoralism is under threat. This is due to a range of factors including weak governance; inadequate land and resource management policies; political and economic marginalization of pastoral groups. These have been initiated by the colonial regimes and continued by postcolonial governments. Increasingly cattle raids have resulted in insecurity fuelled by the proliferation of small arms and light weapons in pastoral communities. The thesis identifies several factors contributing to pastoral conflicts in North Rift, Northeast Africa (Karamoja, West Pokot, Baragoi, and Do! Dol Mukogodo) These include communal resource conflict at the local, district, national and regional levels.The increase in drought has drastically reduced the amount of water and pasture, available, thus escalating the vicious circle of cattle raids and counter raids. The drought has provoked greater need for movement and made clashes more likely. The situation is made worse by the weak governance or no governance in some areas. Official government structures or institutions of justice are conspicuous by their absence. The deficit has been substituted by a proliferation of vigilante groups of armed youth created either by the government or ad-hoc by the community. In recent years the areas have seen the emergence of local businessmen and warlords, whose economic activities span cattle raiding, small arms sales, drugs and who are at the -centre of incipient regional criminal networks linked to national networks Small arms are not the cause of the pastoral conflict; they have simply intensified the conflict. Since 2001 until now small arms have drastically dropped in cost. But the ammunition prices have tripled due to their scarcity. Small arms in the pastoral areas have since the 1980s negatively impacted the communities. Small arms injuries can be counted like the incidence of any disease, and from the figures it is clear that a public health crisis is mounting as the violence continues. The 5000 victims of gun wounds over 18 months in Nakapiripirit area alone should be viewed as a major problem. No common policy on intervention by the states is available. Attempts at interventions have been poorly coordinated and executed, too often taking a narrow definition of security that has focused on more or less coercive disarmament without focusing sufficiently on providing viable economic alternatives to those whose livelihoods have become dependent on the gun. Finally, traditional structures of authority within communities have been gravely weakened, as have some of the cultural restraints upon violence that operated in the past.

These 50-60% are found in Africa with largest number found in the North Eastern region. Pastoralism depends largely on the availability and access to water and pasture. However, pastoralism is under threat. This is due to a range of factors including weak governance; inadequate land and resource management policies; political and economic marginalization of pastoral groups. These have been initiated by the colonial regimes and continued by postcolonial governments. Increasingly cattle raids have resulted in insecurity fuelled by the proliferation of small arms and light weapons in pastoral communities. The thesis identifies several factors contributing to pastoral conflicts in North Rift, Northeast Africa (Karamoja, West Pokot, Baragoi, and Do! Dol Mukogodo) These include communal resource conflict at the local, district, national and regional levels.The increase in drought has drastically reduced the amount of water and pasture, available, thus escalating the vicious circle of cattle raids and counter raids. The drought has provoked greater need for movement and made clashes more likely. The situation is made worse by the weak governance or no governance in some areas. Official government structures or institutions of justice are conspicuous by their absence. The deficit has been substituted by a proliferation of vigilante groups of armed youth created either by the government or ad-hoc by the community. In recent years the areas have seen the emergence of local businessmen and warlords, whose economic activities span cattle raiding, small arms sales, drugs and who are at the -centre of incipient regional criminal networks linked to national networks Small arms are not the cause of the pastoral conflict; they have simply intensified the conflict. Since 2001 until now small arms have drastically dropped in cost. But the ammunition prices have tripled due to their scarcity. Small arms in the pastoral areas have since the 1980s negatively impacted the communities. Small arms injuries can be counted like the incidence of any disease, and from the figures it is clear that a public health crisis is mounting as the violence continues. The 5000 victims of gun wounds over 18 months in Nakapiripirit area alone should be viewed as a major problem. No common policy on intervention by the states is available. Attempts at interventions have been poorly coordinated and executed, too often taking a narrow definition of security that has focused on more or less coercive disarmament without focusing sufficiently on providing viable economic alternatives to those whose livelihoods have become dependent on the gun. Finally, traditional structures of authority within communities have been gravely weakened, as have some of the cultural restraints upon violence that operated in the past.