• Asals PS Kello Harsama said Kenya’s international borders are home to pastoral communities that share common culture, language and resources.
• Harsama said Kenya has embarked on collaborative efforts with its neighbours.
Image: FILE
Resource-based conflicts, which mainly affect borderline communities, can be averted by building resilience, experts have said.
The calls were made last week when the Igad Centre for Pastoral Areas and Livestock Development hosted a Horn of Africa Regional Knowledge Share Fair.
The event was dedicated to disseminating results of resilience programming focusing on Igad’s Karamoja, Moyale and Mandera clusters in the cross-border areas of Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya.
Crucial issues discussed included transformation of the livestock sector, animal feed security, health for humans and animals and climate change, conflict and pastoral mobility.
Minister Karamoja Affairs, Uganda Peter Lokeris, attended the event.
Asals PS Kello Harsama said Kenya’s international borders are home to pastoral communities that share common culture, language and resources.
“Due to the fragility of the Asals, communities have been conflicting over natural resources, in particular water and pasture. This scenario has been worsened by climate change effects,” he said.
Harsama said Kenya has embarked on collaborative efforts with its neighbours.
The PS said with guidance from Igad, Kenya and Uganda signed an MoU on September 13, 2019, in Moroto. The objective was to accord communities on both sides of the border the opportunity for better cooperation, cross-border coordination and peaceful coexistence.
The MoU was also meant to bridge isolation gaps to improve livelihoods and socioeconomic conditions for sustainable peace and development.
Harsama said the ministry is in the process of reviewing the MoU between Kenya and Ethiopia, and initiating an MoU between Kenya, Somalia and Kenya-South Sudan.
The PS said Kenya lost more than 2.5 million livestock during the last drought, hence adversely affecting pastoral livelihoods.
He said the development of Asals cannot be realised by the government alone but requires collective effort from all partners.
“In view of this, Kenya has forged partnerships with state and non-state actors to consolidate resources and spur development," Harsama said.
"For effective coordination, the Partnership Coordination Framework and Resilience Programming Framework for the Asals have been developed. It is envisaged these two frameworks will harmonise programming and enhance synergies for impact.”
Igad deputy executive secretary Mohamed Ware said borderline communities are not problem areas but opportunities.
“Border communities, in large part, are pastoralists and agro-pastoralists, depending on increasingly unreliable and erratic rainfall," Ware said.
"Often victims of the extremes of climate impact, they endure cycles of drought and floods. With limited infrastructure in border areas, humanitarian and relief efforts are often too little, too late.”
He said borderline communities are often caught in the margins of two or more countries, with policing and security services not adequate.
Borderlands are often hideouts of criminal elements and communities in these areas are victims of banditry, livestock rustling, arms trafficking, racketeering and other forms of criminality.
“Border communities must be resilient. They have no choice. Any assistance to them, be it humanitarian interventions or social development investments, must start with preserving and strengthening their resilience," Ware said.
"The do no harm principle of assistance intervention seems to have been invented with border communities in mind.”