How youths in marginal counties are shifting gear on conflict, banditry

For many years, counties sitting on the borderline of farming and pastoralist communities have often experienced conflicts, mostly emanating from shared usable resources such as water and land for pasture.  

Although these conflicts are followed with peace-building initiatives for conflict resolutions, some of the efforts fail because of communities’ failure to embrace alternative livelihoods.

In Kenya, the national government and counties have partnered with other stakeholders to prevent recurring tension related to competition for resources, resulting in loss of lives, destruction of property and ruining of livelihoods.

As societies advance, successive younger generations can offer proper cushioning in finding the middle ground to end conflicts.

Mr Meshack Muga, Food and Agriculture Organization national project coordinator in charge of restoration initiatives, arid and semi-arid lands, says young people are versatile and more readily adaptable to change because they have flexible mindsets.

Mr Muga explains that there is much hope that younger generations from conflicting communities will change the conflict narrative. They just need to be assisted to divert their energies from the age-old pastoralism that smoulders into conflicts to modern ways of commercial livestock management.

“This is already being done using innovative ways that integrate the upgrading of traditional practices with newer methods of economic livelihoods,” says Mr Muga, whose operations focus on marginal areas.   

However, the pace of this transformation is being affected by the overall problem of rural-urban migration.

“You realise once young people from these areas are educated, they are not able to fit in the community and they move to other areas in search of employment that befits their qualifications, and even settle there. This leaves the society with a gap of knowledge and human capital to develop new ideas that can be embraced by the society,” explains Mr Muga.

Opinion leaders in the arid and semi-arid areas, he says, have a bigger role to play in convincing their own educated people why they should remain behind to make a difference in the communities where they come from.

The opinion leaders, some of whom the youth grew up admiring, serve as effective role models as they are more relied upon by residents than the political class, owing to their availability, trust and common interests.

Social groups such as women, local teachers, religious organisations and professionals are key opinion shapers that can make a great impact.

Interacting with political leaders can often prove to be hard, as it is compounded by the vast terrain, says Mr Muga.

Alternative livelihoods

Conflict, he explains, can be ended if current leaders started inculcating the youth into alternative livelihoods. The northern rangelands have unexploited resources such as gum arabic, resin, myrrh, frankincense and maggi.

Other economic areas that are not fully exploited include beekeeping, aloe vera species and eco-tourism and forestry management.

With advances in modern technology, controlling invasive species such as the mathenge weed, which can be converted into other uses, is also picking up.  

Mr Muga says there is new hope coming from community-initiated programmes by local professionals and elders.

He gives the example of Wazee wa Mazingira guarding Mount Kulal in Marsabit County. Kulal has been declared an important heritage site because of its unique flora and fauna.

“The coming together of these groups provides a platform for dialogue, which is a critical starting point when deliberating on any change.”

Dr Anderson Kehbila, programme leader for natural resources and ecosystems at the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI)–Africa Centre says communities where youth have been engaged by older generations, such as through change forums have started reaping benefits.

Dr Kehbila gives the example of the customary-based natural resources management system applied by the Borana community in Isiolo and Marsabit counties.

Instead of using their energy to fan conflicts, the youth can be transformed through beneficial activities such as taking part in community conservancies and viable livestock management that is attached to commercial benefits and modern trading.

In the arrangement, two methods are being used by the communities to curb conflicts.

One is customary community-based natural resources management whereby certain swathes of land are set aside for common access for forage and water for animals and people. These lands also serve as areas for regulating grazing pastures and regeneration, adds Alutta Inyende, a University of Nairobi ecological economist.

Another method involves the current arrangement with conservancies where the reserves create sustainable coexistence between wildlife conservation and livestock production. They can also curb farmer-pastoralist conflicts by acting as mitigation zones against recurrent droughts associated with perennial pasture scarcity that leads to migration of pastoralists.

John Ndesi, 26, a business development officer in Laikipia County, recalls that he repeated nursery class thrice at his Arjijo Primary School in Laikipia North.

Improve their lives

With his father, they would migrate in search of pasture for their animals.

He recalls hard times during one of the worst droughts in Kenya in 2000.

They left Arjijo village for Mt Kenya, where pastoralists usually went to pasture their livestock as they waited for the drought to subside.

Many would die, and he recalls his father having to sell some of his herd at throwaway prices. Many children from his Maa community would drop out of school.

After graduating in business management from Mount Kenya University, Mr Ndesi says he has already started mobilising colleagues from Doldol High School to mentor other upcoming youth on how to improve their lives.

“I remember influencing my father to start keeping fewer animals to avoid losing them whenever there was drought. Since my father had reached Class Six, he saw the sense and later convinced my uncles to follow suit,” says Mr Ndesi.

He has emotional memories about his grandfather, Mzee Losiramomgi Talian, who died in his 80s.

“My grandfather was resistant to change and kept many animals. However, towards the end of my Form Four, I had managed to convince him to keep a herd that he could manage,” he says.

“Like the rest of the elders, he treasured all his animals to a point where he saw them dying without a change of mind to sell some of them before they became emaciated. Before my grandfather died, he told me that he so much regretted having not sold part of his livestock to educate his children.

“He told me, ‘If I had sold some of my cattle, all my children would have been educated, and my family would now be very developed’.”
Mr Ndesi says for one to change the mindset of pastoral communities, one should get down to their level to understand them and their beliefs.

He recalls one time Laikipia Governor Ndiritu Muriithi visited a group of elders from Kimajo, Mkogodo.

A hospital had been built for the community but few patients showed up.

“After a one-on-one discussion with elders over goat meat, he realised that they were stuck in their tradition of herbal treatments and did not believe in modern medicine,” explains Mr Ndesi.

If the government wants to end current conflicts between communities, it must aim to change the mindset, brick by brick, and education must be a key focus area.

“You imagine a young boy of 12 years being taught how to aim with a gun. How experienced would he be at 20?” quips Mr Ndesi.
Other interventions that can bring quick change include infrastructure such as roads and telecommunications services, as they will open up the vast area, inviting people from different cultural backgrounds to come in, who will have an impact on the socio-economic aspects of the pastoralist communities.
Although drought has affected the lifestyle of Asal communities, Mr Ndesi says, resistance to change is only making their condition worse year after year, especially with changing weather patterns due to global warming.