Land is a very important factor in agricultural production in Kenya. About 80% of the poor live in rural areas and derive their livelihood fromland. However, they are generally concentrated on land where unreliable rainfall, adverse soil conditions and poor fertility limit agriculturalproductivity. Today, high rural poverty levels, increasing population densities and declining land fertility represent an enormous agriculturaland environmental policy challenge in Kenya. It is clear that substantial rural poverty reduction can only be achieved if agriculturalproductivity is improved and land resources conserved.

Land is at the heart of conflicts in many parts of the world. Competition and violent conflictsover land have intensified leading to deaths and loss of properties. In Isiolo District multipleinterests and categories of people have come into play and impinge on one another as they seek toacquire, defend and exercise claims on Land. This study assess key historical and socio-politicaldimension of land conflicts, factors causing conflicts, the procedures of acquiring land andinterventions applied in land-based conflicts in Isiolo District.

Kenya's new constitution, inaugurated in August 2010, altered the institutional structure of the state in complex ways. The general motivation behind reform was to enhance the political representation of ordinary citizens in general and that of marginalized ethno-regional groups in particular, and to devolve control over resources to the county level. In the land domain, reform objectives were as explicit and hard-hitting as they were anywhere else. Reform of land law and land administration explicitly aimed at putting an end to the bad old days of overcentralization of power in the hands of an executive branch considered by many to be corrupt, manipulative, and self-serving

The violence which followed the disputed results of Kenya’s December 27th general electionssurprised many observers due to the speed at which it spread across many parts of the country.However, the economic and social tensions underpinning the violence have been evident fordecades. Kenya is a society characterised by deeply embedded structural violence. Accordingto Galtung, “violence is present when human beings are influenced so that their actual somaticand mental realisations are below their potential realisations”2 Structural violence in Kenyamanifests itself in anomalous legal, political, social and economic structures. These structuresprevent many Kenyans from achieving their full potential. Structural violence if not addressedfor prolonged periods of time may eventually lead to physical violence as life in the structurebecomes unbearable.3

The large-scale violence that erupted in Kenya after the controversial 27th December 2007 generalelections was no single major explosion. Different parts of the country were affected in very differentways. While many parts of Kenya were burning, the Coast Province remained relatively calm, despitethe longstanding history of socio-political tension and even violent conflict in this part of the country.How did the nation-wide conflict after the 2007 general elections affect Coast Province, and to whatextent did it become violent? How was an even more violent escalation of conflict avoided? And whatdo the events in Coast Province following the December 2007 general elections tell us about the riskof future conflict in the Coast? The study by Mwandawiro Mghanga, published in this book, shows thatthere is no reason to underestimate, or be complacent about, the potentials for current and futureconflict in Coast Province. Even though the Coast did not belong to the hotspots of violence in 2007-08, this does by no means guarantee future peace. Observers and policy-makers should take note ofthe severe, and growing, risk of possibly violent conflict in Kenya’s Coast Province.

Forced internal displacements are an acute and sensitiveissue in Kenya. According to the more recent statisticsprovided by United Nations Offi ce for the Coordination ofHumanitarian Affairs, there are around 380,000 internallydisplaced persons (IDPs) in Kenya. This places the countryat the 7th rank in Africa in terms of numbers of IDPs.Through interviews with members of the National IDPsNetwork, a Kenyan NGO, the FIDH delegates whichtook part in an international mission of investigationheld in Kenya from January 19 to 25, 2007, establishedwith concern that IDPs in Kenya are facing a disastroushumanitarian situation.

This landscape-scale study combines analysis of multitemporal satellite imageryspanning 30 years and information from field studies extending over25 years to assess the extent and causes of land use and land cover change inthe Loitokitok area, southeast Kajiado District, Kenya. Rain fed and irrigatedagriculture, livestock herding, and wildlife and tourism have all experiencedrapid change in their structure, extent, and interactions over the past 30 yearsin response to a variety of economic, cultural, political, institutional, and demographicprocesses. Land use patterns and processes are explored througha complementary application of interpretation of satellite imagery and casestudy analysis that explicitly addresses the local–national spatial scale over atime frame appropriate to the identification of fundamental causal processes.The results illustrate that this combination provides an effective basis for describingand explaining patterns of land use and land cover change and theirroot causes.

In recent years and months, the conflict-ridden pastoralist areas of northernKenya have been experiencing new waves of violence. This has been especiallyimportant in the Isiolo area, Moyale and along the Pokot–Turkanaboundary. Here, raiding is common and people are killed almost on a dailybasis in the course of violent clashes between members of different tribes.

Violent conflicts involving pastoralists have become widespread and increasingly severe throughout much of the Horn of Africa. This report identifies and examines the factors contributing to such conflicts, and discusses issues and priorities for conflict prevention and peace-building. These are examined across the Horn of Africa in general, and in Laikipia – a district in northern Kenya – in particular. On the basis of this examination, a number of conclusions and recommendations are developed on ways in which the EU and its member states could contribute to efforts to prevent conflicts involving pastoralists in Kenya and more generally in the Horn of Africa.

The African Great Lakes Region (GLR) has witnessed some of the most intenseviolence and protracted conflict of the last half-century. There has been spirallingand sometimes over-lapping conflict in Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and theDemocratic Republic of Congo (DRC) (hereinafter Zone 1 conflict states). Yet theirneighbours—Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia (hereinafter Zone 2 peacefulstates)—have remained generally peaceful. This article asks what makes thedifference in conflict outcomes between these neighbouring states? It has one goal:to identify a set of structural and historical factors (if any), that differentiate the zone1 from the zone 2 states and which can explain the incidence of conflicts acrosstime and countries. We set out to document and estimate the impact of a commonset of structural factors that underpin the outbreak of wars in this region over thepast fifty years, while controlling for time and country specific effects.

The objective of our research was the assessment of the work of 22 Civil SocietyThe objective of our research was the assessment of the work of 22 Civil SocietyOrganisations (CSOs) in Kenya dealing especially with the effects of the Post-ElectionViolence 2007/2008. Within the period of four weeks, German and Kenyan studentswere interviewing CSOs, talking to victims and structuring their findings to be presentedin a two-day workshop in Nairobi in March 2012 and in this final report.

The workshop held in Nairobi provided a unique opportunity for an exchange of viewsand ideas, not only among the CSOs present, but also with representatives ofgovernment-affiliated organisations. In this way, participants learnt very much from eachother. It became apparent that a strong networking among the various actors, which hadthus far not been in place, was essential. It would be helpful to share similar ideas andstrategies with other organisations, in order to create a more peaceful development inKenya. Appropriate networking and cooperation could trigger significant synergy effects.This potential must be exploited at all costs in order to determine practicable solutions inthe broad areas of peace-building.

Most conflicts mainlyaffect rural areas and theirpopulations. This is particularlytrue for civil conflicts, nowadaysthe most common form of armedconflict.

Conflict has strong andunambiguous adverse effectson food security and nutrition. It isthe major driver of food insecurityand malnutrition, both acute andchronic.

Conflict has lasting impactson human development as aresult of increased malnutrition,which tends to affect children themost and leave lifelong physicaland/or mental handicaps.

A 2011 assessment of the availabilityof small arms and perceptions of securityin Kenya—conducted by the KenyaNational Focal Point on Small Armsand Light Weapons (KNFP) and theSmall Arms Survey—found that safetyduring electioneering periods was thehighest concern among householdrespondents. Specifically, 48.4 per centfelt most unsafe during political campaigns(Wepundi et al., 2012, p. 60).This finding is understandable, givenKenya’s recent political history and itsrecurrent electoral violence.

The announcement of the disputed 2007 presidential election results in Kenya on December 27th, 2007 led to whatcould be described as the worst political crisis in Kenyan post-colonial history. This massacre claimed over 1000 livesof children, men, and women, and left about 600,000 Kenyans internally displaced. The immediate and remote causesof the crisis have been analyzed by different experts. Thus, it is pertinent to note that remote causes of the violence aretraceable to the advent of multi-party politics in the 1990s and it was manifested in different forms in different parts ofthe country. Although exacerbated by political feuds, the violence had its roots in ethnic rivalries and struggle forancestral lands. The internal feud had been brewing for decades and the election results were the catalyst andimmediate cause that finally ignited the conflict. This essay undertakes a cause-effect analysis of the conflict withfocus on the internal and global responses to Internally Displaced Persons.

Land has been and remains a politically sensitive and culturally complex issue for Kenya. Kenya’s history with regard to the land question is characterized by indications of a breakdown in land administration, disparities in land ownership, tenure insecurity and conflict.

It was therefore against this backdrop that land reform was identified as an essential component of Kenya’s National Dialogue and Reconciliation (KNDR) process and in particular, agenda item 4 on addressing long standing issues. Under Agenda 4, the following processes have been undertaken and proved essential towards resolving Kenya’s historical land injustices:

From 6 to 28 February 2008, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights deployed a Fact-Finding Mission (OHCHR Mission) to the Republic of Kenya to look into the violence and allegations of grave human rights violations following the presidential elections in December 2007.  The OHCHR Mission also analysed underlying civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights issues and formulated recommendations on possible accountability mechanisms.  TheOHCHR Mission conducted on-site visits to the affected areas and met with a wide range of actors in the Government, among the opposition, and met with victims, human rights defenders as well as the diplomatic community.

Robert Aumann and Thomas Schelling received the 2006 Nobel prize memorialin Economics for their contributions to our understanding of conflict. During the lecture delivered for his award, R. Aumann declared the following:

"War has been with us ever since the dawn of civilization. Nothing has been more constant in history than war.  It’s a phenomenon; it’s not aseries of isolated events. [. . . ] Why does homo-oeconomicus, rational men, go to war?  What do I mean by rationality?  A person’s behaviour is rational if it is in his best interests given his information.  With this definition, can war be rational?  Unfortunately the answer is yes, it can be."

Extreme poverty and the collapse of law and order can become mutuallyxtreme poverty and the collapse of law and order can become mutuallyreinforcing, producing a conflict trap (Blomberg et al. 2000; Elbadawi,Ndung’u, and Njuguna 2001). In Sub-Saharan Africa, many countries arecaught in such a conflict trap and one out of every five people is directly affectedby civil wars (Elbadawi et al. 2001). In Kenya, poverty levels almost doubled in the1990s, a decade marred by ethnic violence, but the country has avoided the conflicttrap.This chapter analyzes civil conflict in Kenya and asks why the cycles ofethnic conflict have not escalated into a full-blown civil war.

Human-wildlife conflict (HWC) is an increasingly significant obstacle toHuman-wildlife conflict (HWC) is an increasingly significant obstacle tothe conservation of wildlife. The growing body of HWC literature tendsto focus on biological, economic and local aspects associated with HWC.The factors driving HWC at the local level are, however, shaped in turn bynumerous other factors, including laws and policies. In many cases, legal andpolicy measures—particularly those involving land-use planning and wildlifemanagement—contribute to this growing problem.Yet lawand policy can playan important role in supporting the mitigation and prevention of HWC. Thisarticle aims to identify predicaments and challenges in current legal and policystrategies and suggests options for reforming law and policy to mitigate HWC.

This thesis sets out to deepen our understanding of the linkages between urban dynamics that influence access, use and ownership of land in developing countries. This is because land scarcity, increased competition for land and inequitable allocation of land in African cities and the mediation of power, politics, ethnicity and corruption, coupled with inequitable access to land, often contribute to conflicts over land. The thesis explores this reality through the case of Nairobi.