Resource frontiers in Northern Kenya
Among the main pillars of Kenya’s Vision 2030 – an ambitious national masterplan aimed at transforming Kenya into a middle-income country by 2030 – are promises of significantly enhanced infrastructure, energy provision, and land reform. A relevant policy report, the Development Strategy for Northern Kenya and other Arid Lands, evokes the ‘significant amount of untapped wealth’ of Kenya’s previously marginalized arid north (RoK 2011: 15). In the foreword to the report, Kenya’s then-President Mwai Kibaki, wrote: ‘The arid lands in particular have a limitless supply of renewable energy which could power our homes, schools and factories. The region is thus blessed with unique opportunities’ (ibid. 5). Northern Kenya has, therefore, caught the interest of potential land investors, and this has contributed to a dramatic rise in local expectations to participate in and benefit from new opportunities (Lind 2018, Mosley and Watson 2016).
Historically, Kenya’s northern region was considered remote, backward, and without potential for economic exploitation (Elliott 2016). The vast area including Baringo, Marsabit, and Turkana counties is inhabited by groups of people who make their livings from pastoralism and agro-pastoralism (see Table 6.1). Land tenure in the project areas for wind, oil, and geothermal development was and is still partly communal trust land. Since 2016, the Community Land Act paved the way for community group registration, thus providing legal protection for land users. Implementation, however, has been slow, mainly owed to a lack of political will, as suggested by Alden Wily (2018), who also doubts its effectiveness for protecting the land rights of local populations.
Table 6.1: Basic data on Baringo, Marsabit, and Turkana counties in relation to Kenya as a whole [Source: Kenya National Bureau of Statistics 2019].
| Unit | Year | Baringo | Marsabit | Turkana | Kenya |
Area | km2 | 2019 | 10,976 | 70,944 | 68,233 | 580,876 |
Population | in 1000s | 2019 | 667 | 460 | 927 | 47,564 |
Population density | number per km2 | 2019 | 61 | 6 | 14 | 82 |
Many communities in these areas also hold historical grievances against the state, as well as a weak sense of belonging to the Kenyan nation. There are several hotspots of inter-community conflict between certain ethnic groups over water, pasture, and livestock. Availability of guns plays an important role in these conflicts and contributes to the high prevalence of banditry, deaths, and injuries to people living in these areas (Bond and Mkutu 2017, Mkutu 2008).
Devolution was initially lauded as a remedy against the ‘underlying pathologies of Kenyan politics’ (D’Arcy and Cornell 2016: 247), characterised by corruption, politicized ethnicity, and over-centralization. Amidst a structurally weak and historically marginalized northern context, the implementation of devolution has been particularly slow and challenging when compared to other regions, allegedly due to a lack of skilled personnel and organizational capacities (Turkana County Government 2018). Devolution also appears to have reinforced patronage politics and enhanced competition for some important political positions (Lind 2018). In most cases, devolution maintained existing district boundaries as county boundaries; however, by reinforcing local centres of power, devolution also further fuelled pre-existing conflicts (Greiner 2013). Due to the low presence of state security in Kenya’s arid north, these conflicts have turned increasingly violent, especially as most pastoralists are in possession of automatic rifles (Mkutu 2007, Schetter et al. 2022).
New legislation, such as the Petroleum and Energy Acts of 2019, provides for the sharing of public revenues at the local level from oil investments and geothermal development, although not for wind energy (Schilling et al. 2018). Following such legislation, counties will receive 20 per cent and local communities will receive 5 per cent of the national government share of public revenues. Negotiations over this provision have polarised relations between counties and the central government (Orr 2019) and also intensified boundary conflicts between counties and sub-counties, as pastoralist livelihoods traditionally required flexible concepts of territorial belonging. The Natural Resources Benefit Sharing Senate Bill no. 6 of 2022, which has yet to pass the legislature at the time of this writing, would amend this formula to allow for the allocation of 40 per cent to counties – of which almost two-thirds (60 per cent) would be allocated to host communities to support their local socio-economic development.