Mandera North, in Kenya’s North Eastern province has also been the scene of recent conflict over water. Credit: Protus Onyango/IPS

By Protus Onyango
NAIROBI, Sep 11 2012 (IPS)

Water scarcity is fuelling deadly inter-ethnic wars that continue to claim lives in Kenya, according to government officials. And if nothing is done to educate communities on how to conserve the valuable resource, the situation will escalate, governance experts and environmentalists warn.

On Sunday, Sep. 9, 38 people were killed in revenge attacks in the Tana River Delta district of Kenya’s Coast province. The deceased include eight children, five women, 16 men, and nine police officers.

The incident occurred as the government announced it would conduct a disarmament exercise in the Tana River Delta following clashes over water and pasture that have left more than 80 people dead.

Coast province police boss Aggrey Adoli told IPS that about 500 raiders from the Pokomo ethnic group attacked the Kilelengwani village, in Tana River Delta, and torched a police camp and several other structures at dawn. On Monday, Sep. 10 the area was inaccessible and police officers were flown in by helicopter to quell the violence.

“This was in retaliation to Thursday’s incident in which 13 Pokomos were killed when raiders from the Orma (ethnic group) struck the Tarassa village in the area,” Adoli said.

The attacks are in retaliation to an Aug. 22 incident over water and resources that resulted in the death of 52 people, including 11 children and 31 women. The attack occurred after cattle owned by the Orma ethnic group strayed onto farmlands belonging to the neighbouring Pokomo community and destroyed their crops. Both communities have a long history of conflict over resources.

But conflict over resources is not confined to this region. Also on Aug. 22, four people were killed in a separate incident in Muradellow village in Mandera North, in North Eastern province. Police said that the conflict occurred at a water point where herders had taken their animals.

In March, 22 people were killed in Mandera, in North Eastern. More than 1,500 people fled their homes as a result of the violence, which occurred in El Golicha village, close to Kenya’s border with Somalia.

North Eastern provincial officer Ernest Munyi, who is also the region’s assistant commissioner of police, told IPS that the attacks were becoming more frequent.

“Clan attacks are common in the region, which has now been witnessing clashes every month since February. The attacks were often sporadic, targeting members of other clans but usually arise from resource competition.

“These are nomadic pastoralists who depend on livestock for survival. They rustle livestock and fight over water and the few grazing fields,” he said.

Political leaders, human rights activists and environmentalists are calling on the government to address the problem urgently.

Mwalimu Mati, the chief executive of Mars Group, an NGO that deals with governance, told IPS that the government must provide equitable resources to end the clashes.

“Resource conflict will be with us for a long (time) because the government policies that promote timber harvesting have resulted in deforestation,” said Mati, who is also a lawyer. Scanty forest cover has resulted in the reduced rainfall here, according to water experts.

Peter Mangich, the director of water services at the Ministry of Water and Irrigation, told IPS that due to the effects of climate change, the country now only received one quarter of its previous rainfall.

“The average annual rainfall is 630 millimeters, which should be four times this figure to be enough. The National Development Plan 2002 to 2008 recognises Kenya as a water-scarce country where the water demand exceeds renewable freshwater sources,” he said.

“Our depleting natural water resources, due to inadequate rainfall and scanty forest cover that stands at three percent, are the problem. The country’s water basins do not reach an equitable area of the country,” he said.

And it is the reason for the increased conflict, according to Dr. Bernard Rop, a former Commissioner of Mines, a geologist and environmentalist.

“As a result of the skewed water distribution between the country’s water basins and within the basins, water use conflicts arise out of demand of water for irrigation, livestock, wildlife and environmental conservation,” Rop told IPS.

“There have been clashes over water and grazing fields in most parts of North Eastern, Turkana, Samburu and Pokot in the Rift Valley and the Coast regions for the last 10 years, resulting in the death of 400 people and the theft of 10,000 livestock,” he said.

Mati pointed out that conflict over resources would spread to other parts of the country that were not water scarce.

“Conflict will not only be in dry areas. Climate change is real and even countries that share the River Nile are quarrelling over it. Let the government adopt other means to solve this problem,” he said.

Mati explained the need for water had resulted in Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Sudan calling for the revocation of a 1959 treaty, brokered by the United Kingdom, that gave Egypt, and to a lesser extent Sudan, historical rights to the river’s resources.

Rop said that Kenya had water readily available, it just had to be tapped. “This country produces 290 megawatts of geothermal energy, the leading in Africa. It has a lot of underground water. If this water is tapped and distributed to the affected areas, conflict will end,” he said.

Mangich said that the government is addressing the problem.

“Since last year, we have partnered with NGOs like World Vision to sink boreholes in the affected areas so that residents can have enough water for their livestock and domestic use. We also encourage them to use the water to grow vegetables and maize to complement livestock keeping,” he said.

But Mati said that nomadic pastoralists should be encouraged to engage in other economic activities that are more vialable and suggested that the government encourage urbanisation.

“This will allow many people to live in towns that have social amenities and to farm on land as a group, not as individuals,” he said.

Kenya’s Minister of Educatoin Mutula Kilonzo told IPS that the government needed to implement existing policies regarding access to water.

“The new constitution has very good policies to cater for the dry regions by sinking boreholes and promoting irrigation. Let us implement laws that deal with agriculture and the clashes will end,” he said.

The August 2012 elections in Kenya will open doors to massive political participation by women for the first time ever.

Water Minister Charity Ngilu was the first woman to run for the presidency in Kenya, in 1997. Credit: Protus Onyango/IPS

The new constitution in effect since August 2010 contains a provision that should radically change political representation for women in this East African country.

Women’s rights activists in Kenya are confident that as a result of constitutional Article 81 (b), which states that “not more than two-thirds of the members of elective public bodies shall be of the same gender,” their problems of under-representation in key government bodies will become a thing of the past.

Kenya is a patriarchal society where women only gained equal rights to inherit land when the new constitution entered into force. And women who speak out are often seen as social misfits.

For example, when the late Prof Wangari Maathai opposed the construction of a 60-story building in Nairobi’s Uhuru Park, senior male political leaders of the government of then president Daniel arap Moi called her a madwoman.

But a radical change is in store, because now women must form one-third of any elective public body.

And the principle of two-thirds gender equilibrium has already been implemented in some key appointments made since the new constitution was promulgated. In all the commissions and other constitutional offices that have been formed, the rule has been followed.

For the first time in Kenya’s 48 years of independence, one-third of the members of the Supreme Court, the commission on revenue allocation, the commission for the implementation of the constitution and the salaries and remuneration commission are now women.

But the real windfall will come with the August general elections.

In the new constitution, Kenya adopted a devolved government made up of the national and county governments. And instead of a 224-member single-chamber National Assembly, there will be a National Assembly as well as a Senate representing the 47 counties into which the country has been divided. There will also be a County Assembly.

In the National Assembly, where there are currently 210 popularly elected members, 12 members nominated by the parties, and the attorney-general and house speaker as ex-officio members, there will be 290 elected members, 47 female county representatives, and 12 nominated members, bringing the total to 349.

And the new Senate will be made up of one person elected from each county, as well as 21 nominated members, including at least 16 women; two members representing young people – a woman and a man; two members representing people with disabilities – again a woman and a man; and a speaker.

The 47 representatives of the counties are elected members and can be either men or women, while the nominated members are picked by their parties.

The constitution commits political parties to ensure that for every three party members presented to vie for political office, one must be a woman. And if she fails to be elected, a woman must be nominated by the party.

Women currently hold fewer than 10 percent of the seats in parliament, with just 22 women out of 224 members – although that is the largest number ever. And in the cabinet, there are only six women out of a total of 40 ministers.

Meeting the one-third goal easier said than done

A proposed amendment drafted by Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo offers a formula to be adopted if the elections fail to yield the requisite number of women to ensure that not more than two-thirds of the members of parliament are men, as stipulated by Article 81 (b) of the constitution.

If not enough women are elected and nominated, the bill proposes increasing the number of legislators from 349 to 449 in the National Assembly, and from 67 to 90 in the Senate.

Thus, Kenyan taxpayers would end up paying more, in order to fulfil the gender rule, if the elections fail to yield 100 women plus the 47 who must be nominated to represent the counties.

Minister Kilonzo says money is not on his mind now. “If Kenyans don’t want to spend extra money, they should vote in 100 women during the elections, which will add to the 18 who will be in the Senate and 47 who will be automatically elected to represent the counties. If not, we shall have to work with this temporary measure to top up (the number of) women.”

Welcomed by women

Many women leaders, both in government and civil society, are happy with the constitutional provisions.

“We have been called names and struggled to make a mark in this male-dominated society, but now it is upon us to come out in large numbers and vote in women leaders because we have suffered a lot. After all, we are the majority,” says Water Minister Charity Ngilu, the first woman to run for the presidency in Kenya, in 1997. She emerged sixth, behind five men.

MP Martha Karua, who is vying for the presidency this year, shares Ngilu’s sentiments. “Women understand the problems in this country, they are not corrupt and they want to change the way Kenya is governed. The constitution is our stepping stone; let us use it to bring prosperity to our beloved country,” she told IPS.

Former MP Paul Muite, a prominent Nairobi lawyer who is also gunning for the presidency, welcomes the provision but is worried that men might now find themselves in a similar situation of under-representation.

“Given the history of this country, women might vote in very many of their own to outnumber the men. But we shall apply the same law if that happens. But for now, let us do what the law says, because that is the price for democracy,” Muite told IPS.

Priscilla Nyokabi, the director of the Kituo Cha Sheria (Centre for Legal Empowerment), is urging other civil society activists to be vigilant and make sure that the government follows the new law. “This will bring development to all Kenyans because men are selfish and only think about themselves,” she told IPS.

And Rael Masimba, a divorced woman who lives on the streets of Nairobi, is planning to go home and sue her cousins for her father’s land, which she had been denied when her parents died because she is a woman and was married at the time.

By Protus Onyango
NAIROBI, Jan 3 2012 (IPS)

The acute lack of water in Kenya means families have to trek long distances every day to fetch water. In both rural and urban areas, people often walk as far as 30 kilometres or more to collect water from rivers, streams or wells. But thanks to self-help projects backed by NGOs, some communities are coming up with solutions.

Women from the Kadokoi community water project show how they use drip irrigation to grow vegetables with water from their borehole. Credit: Protus Onyango/IPS

Over 80 percent of the country’s population of 40 million has no access to clean water, according to the World Water Organisation.

Those who live in dry northern or eastern regions and parts of the Rift Valley spend days in search of water for domestic use and for their livestock, their economic mainstay. Fighting and quarrels at water points are rampant as women, men, children and animals battle for the little water available. And women who stay out late fetching water risk getting raped.

“Lack of water in Kenya is associated with the high mortality rate among children under five years old, which is primarily due to waterborne diseases such as diarrhoea, malaria, and amoebic dysentery. Contamination from human and livestock waste also causes water-related diseases,” Dr. Joram Mwangi at Eldoret’s Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital told IPS.

A majority of Kenyans have to cling to the little they have for cooking, and forego other things like washing. “Bathing and washing are a problem. We go even for three days without having a shower, because water is expensive. In fact, more expensive than food,” Gaudensia Achieng from Kondele village, outside of Kisumu city on the shores of lake Victoria, told IPS.

Ironically, Lake Victoria is the second largest fresh water lake in the world.

The Ministry of Water and Irrigation transferred the management and operation of water services to the Water Services Boards (WSBs) in 2005. The ministry and the government as a whole have been blamed for failure to address the problem by adopting policies to provide clean water.

“The government should harvest rainwater, which goes to waste during rainy season, and use it for domestic and agricultural purposes,” Dr Martin Keya, who teaches conservation at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, told IPS. “It should also conserve its water towers, which are eroded daily, and discourage subdivision of land which depletes the soil and encourages population to move into forests.”

He added that the government should train nomadic people in irrigation, provide them with farm inputs like fertiliser and seeds to embrace agriculture, and work with non-governmental organisations, community-based organisations and other self-help groups to dig boreholes across the country to address the problem.

Community borehole changes lives

It is through the intervention of one such NGO, ActionAid Kenya, that a whole division in the Rift Valley region has water and its residents have embraced farming. The happiness written on the face of Loice Kitilil, one of the residents of the division, shows her life has changed for the better.

Gone are the days when she had to walk up to 20 kilometres to look for water with her child perched on her back. Tired of the harsh conditions faced by women in Tangulbei division of East Pokot, Kitilil joined 27 other women and 22 men to found the Kadokoi community water project in 2009. Tangulbei is a dry area in the Rift Valley region of Kenya, about 350 kilometres from Nairobi, the capital city.

Tangulbei division has 40,000 residents. Divisions and districts are administrative units in Kenya.

A drought in the area recently killed people and livestock. The residents are nomadic pastoralists who depend on livestock for their livelihoods. Women are not allowed to own any property and are supposed to stay at home to bear children and perform domestic chores.

It was the difficult living conditions as well as the failure by the government to implement sound water and agricultural policies that prompted the group, through its committee chaired by Philemon Akwija, to approach ActionAid Kenya and ask them to help solve their water problem by helping them dig a borehole.

ActionAid responded by digging them a borehole and providing them with a water tank and solar panels, while the group members supplied stones, sand and ballast for construction. Then like manna from heaven, over 3,000 families were all smiles when they were able to draw clean water, in 2009.

“It was like a miracle for me. I couldn’t believe that now I will be able to walk for 20 metres to fetch water, instead of the 20 kilometres I used to walk earlier,” said Julia Motii, the group’s director.

Growing fresh produce, drip by drip

But the “miracles” did not stop there. In early 2011, officers from Farming Systems Kenya, a local NGO that specialises in agriculture, came knocking with more good news. They told the group that they could also use the water by engaging in irrigation.

“We knew nothing about farming, but officers from ActionAid and Farming Systems taught us farming basics and told us to adopt drip irrigation which they said suited our area. We then raised money to hire a tractor to till three acres close to the borehole. We have now embraced farming,” William Akeno, the group’s vice chairman, told IPS.

The group members were then given seeds by the government to establish a seed nursery. Their farm now has fresh onions, kale and tomatoes.

“We started harvesting our crops last month. We are the only suppliers of onions, tomatoes and kale in the entire division. We make an average of Ksh700 (8.25 dollars) daily. We alternately sell or give free vegetables to our members,” said Motii.

Esther Orot, a group member, is a very happy woman now. “My family used to go hungry for days because of lack of vegetables. We used to send a matatu (minibus) driver to buy us vegetables from Marigat, 80 kilometres away. Sometimes the minibus crew would fail to come back, or would come back and say that there was no vegetable or the money was lost,” she told IPS.

During a visit to the project’s site, Geoffrey Okoth, ActionAid International advisor for Emergencies and Conflicts for Eastern, Central and Southern Africa, commended the members for their good work.

“This is a successful model that can be replicated in the whole region to prepare communities’ resilience against disasters like hunger. If by tilling three acres, you can harvest this, then it means with good farming methods, you can reap more,” Okoth told IPS.

He challenged the men to shun bad cultural practices and help their women in farming, promising them that if the men responded positively, he could commit more funds to the project.

“ActionAid works closely with women because we know that empowering a woman is empowering the nation. If women have resources, it means their families will have food; their children will go to school. I challenge the men to relinquish their positions in the committee to women and see the results,” Okoth said.

Philip Kilonzo, ActionAid Kenya’s advisor on livelihoods, urged men to play a bigger role and asked the group members to identify hard-working members, divide them into groups and allow them to cultivate different crops on different plots.

“Let the members be trained in basic extension practices so that they can understand the new farming dynamics, so that they can use the shamba (plot of land) sustainably and reap maximum benefits,” he said.

Richard Leting, the District Agriculture Officer, promised to work closely with the members. “I will train them and advise them on which crops to grow. I will also make sure they apply for agricultural grants from the government to expand. I will organise exposure tours for them so that they can learn from others,” Leting told IPS.

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By Protus Onyango and - -
NAIROBI, Nov 10 2011 (IPS)

Deputy Chief Justice of Kenya’s Supreme Court Nancy Baraza, who made history as the first woman appointed to the post, has begun overhauling the country’s judiciary.

Deputy Chief Justice of Kenya's Supreme Court Nancy Baraza has begun overhauling the country's judiciary. Credit: Protus Onyango/IPS

Baraza has warned judicial officers resisting reforms that they risk disciplinary action and even retrenchment.

“We shall implement radical but necessary reforms that are going to be able to bring effectiveness, fairness, eliminate corruption and instill discipline among (the judiciary’s) officers,” Baraza told IPS.

The Supreme Court is composed of Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, his deputy, Baraza, and five other judges. It was created to spearhead the implementation of the country’s new constitution, which was signed into law in 2010, and to establish an independent judiciary.

Baraza said that a staff audit will soon be conducted to determine the qualifications and competence of judicial officers and to establish the staffing needs of the judicial system.

“Radical transfers of judicial officers may be on the way to break up entrenched cartels that are frustrating changes in the judiciary. There are some officials who may want the old order to continue. But we will push for the necessary reforms to make the judiciary meet the expectations of Kenyans. Those resisting changes will have to fall by the wayside,” Baraza said.

The deputy chief justice has served as the executive director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission for many years and as the chairperson of the Federation of Women Lawyers – Kenya, which champions women’s rights.

Baraza said there was a need to clear the backlog of over one million cases in the courts in the next six months. She said the Kenyan High Court has 2,015 pending criminal appeal cases, some of which have not been heard for 20 years because files have gone missing. The Kenya High Court has jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters, interprets the country’s bill of rights and the constitution, and is an appeals court for the country’s subordinate courts.

“We must find a solution immediately and have a remedy for all the parties involved,” she said.

The judge added that since she was appointed, the judiciary has so far digitised over 60 million pages of cases from 1999 to 2010 at the High Court.

She said key to the reform agenda included establishing 14 new courts in remote parts of the country and computerising all court operations. She promised that the public would be able to access case information through SMS soon and that the Supreme Court would soon be a paperless court. In addition, High Court and Court of Appeal cases will be allocated electronically.

Vice Chairperson of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) Professor Christine Mango said that Baraza has proved her mettle by stamping her authority to rid the judicial system of corruption. The JSC appoints the judges.

“When we shortlisted her for the post, some people made noise saying that she has a soft spot for gay (men) and lesbians and would use her position to entrench their ideals in our constitution. She has proved them wrong by upholding professional integrity and her opponents are now happy that she is steering the judiciary in the right direction without bias or favour,” Mango said.

Baraza is presently pursuing a PhD thesis at Kenyatta University on gay rights.

Also elected alongside her as the country’s only other female Supreme Court judge was Nancy Njoki Ndungu. A former member of parliament, Ndungu was also a commissioner at the Committee of Experts on Constitutional Review, which drafted Kenya’s new constitution.

But as the two women settle down in their new offices, some hope they will use the court to advance the rights of sexual minorities in Kenya.

In conservative Kenya lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people are subjected to discrimination. The Catholic Church opposed the appointment of the two women and said: “We need people with a judicial philosophy that reflects natural law, the Kenyan religious and African cultural values, including our universal respect for life…” Baraza said her PhD thesis on the rights of gay men and lesbians in Kenya was not complete but that she had established that health services were non-existent for gays. “Those who say I’m supporting them are jumping the gun. I have gone into the unknown. I have no findings yet,” she said.

However, the Chairperson of the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya Maq Gitau said the organisation was happy with the appointment of both women as it now meant they had an avenue to address their issues.

“We have been condemned for our position in society but we are now happy that the constitution grants all of us rights,” he said. Gitau says his organisation has already met with Baraza about being recognised and they “were well received”.

Meanwhile, Ndungu said she wanted to reform the judiciary and “correct all the imbalances” in Kenya.

“My new posting is a challenge, which I believe can be surmounted if all Kenyans and all organs of government work towards a common goal; a goal to reform the judiciary, correct all the imbalances and give the people of Kenya the justice they have long fought for,” Ndungu told IPS.

“This is a tough job for us and Kenyans expect us to deliver justice in the most expeditious way. The job does not lie with us alone. It lies with all Kenyans. They should keep us on our toes, audit our performance and safeguard their constitution where all enjoy their rights,” Baraza said.

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