Uplifting pastoralists entails bringing information closer to them

Turkana nomadic family on the move. PHOTO: Ng'esi Ayong'.

Confronted with a poor, largely illiterate nomadic population, there always pops up that temptation to paint them with one brush, and to advance that faulty view about pastoralists' inherent unwillingness to innovate, and to wholly blame them for failure to adopt the mainstream economic thinking espoused by other supposedly economically ‘superior’ Kenyans.

Though unofficially proclaimed, this thinking shapes the day-to-day engagement between pastoralists themselves, and between pastoralists and other people.

That pastoralist communities in Kenya are materially and culturally endowed is beyond doubt. Why this wealth has translated to little or zero improvement of living standards of the said people is another issue altogether.

Figures from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) paint a picture of a people struggling to surmount the twin challenges of harsh climatic conditions of their localities, and (national) policy disconnect and inbuilt indifference on the side of those mandated to provide public solutions whenever public challenges are pointed out.

It is still common to hear of higher infant mortality rates in pastoral lands. Schooling is in a sorry state.

But herein lies a fundamental point. Harsh climatic conditions of Kenya's pastoralist-dominated regions are not to blame. Many other countries across the world are no better than northern Kenya but have lots of positive points to display thanks to their leaders' ingenuity. 

Botswana, with its elaborate rangeland livestock farming easily comes to mind. Even unstable Somalia pockets huge gains from livestock rearing!

This headache of pastoralists' underdevelopment emanates from poor information dissemination. 

Admitting that we are faced with unfriendly climate that hinders large-scale livestock farming is one factor. Taming this climate is yet another factor. In between them rests one solid question: how committed is Kenya's officialdom to provide lasting solutions?

First things first. Pastoralism as a key economic activity of a significant proportion of Kenyans rarely features among the top priority items in Kenya public policy discourse. Tragically, whenever it appears it is either as a result of public outcry or due to a severe drought scenario that attracted external actors (in most cases deep-pocketed NGOs).

In all these cases, the government joins the fray to save face and never to robustly combat the issue at hand.

Examples abound. Mention any drought incident in Kenya and you will hear of livestock off-take programs. The real beneficiaries of these programs have never been and will never be livestock keepers. The whole process is beyond their control. On one hand they face an unforgiving terrain decimating their animal wealth, and on the other, an elaborate scheme of profiteers who see coins out of tears of herders.

That this team of opportunists remains unchallenged is not only a testament of betrayal of the people by their own government but a clear indication that it will not take long before the people rise up to demand action.

As far as I know, no clear drought mitigation blueprint exists. And if it does, it is domiciled somewhere in government shelves. 

This is probably a culmination of self-inflicted ignorance on the side of the governing elite - and the people alike - that livestock sub-sector is just but an appendage of Kenya's economy. That Kenya's economy is firmly anchored in cash crop production and tourism.

If the 2009 national census is anything to go by, then, there is an urgent need to reactivate our minds. Take the case of Turkana County. The county has its livestock population standing at about 10 million. It has no designated animal disease-free zones. Veterinary officers are nowhere to be seen.

Outreach programs only materialize as a reactive measure to inflict more pain on the already suffering livestock farmers. Like some years back, there was a blanket ban on sell and/or transportation of livestock and livestock products outside Turkana County ostensibly to curb spread of animal diseases. Prior to this, no proactive measures were deployed to keep these diseases at bay. 

One is then left to wonder if authorities’ inaction is another tool to control pastoralism and/or to systematically downscale its benefits. On this one, I choose to stand with the people.

As if to underline this sad state of affairs, Kenya has a fully-fledged state corporation mandated to produce, preserve and conserve animal genetic material (semen embryo, tissues and live animals) and rear breeding bulls for provision of high quality disease free semen to meet the national demand and for export.

All these sweet pronouncements notwithstanding, the Nairobi-based Kenya Animal Genetic Resources Center (KAGRC), has for all its seventy-years of existence seen no reason to decentralize its services.

Should pastoralists trek up to Nairobi in order to enjoy the services of this taxpayer-funded body? How many other public bodies are withholding their services from the people?

It is foolhardy to run around praise-singing about how modernized our economy is, yet – information – a vital component of growth continues to be doled around at the mercies of those holding it.

Kenya has no choice but to share its loads of information with pastoralists in a manner that best suits their demands.

Until this is done, uplifting pastoralists will just remain a pipe dream – but with grave consequences.

Twitter: @mlemukol. 

Kenya’s nomadic boy is a prisoner of hollow heroism

Last year the Kenya government through the Interior Ministry embarked on a major peace campaign. The target groups were communities and leaders from pastoralist counties of Turkana, Baringo and West Pokot. 

At the heart of this campaign was the thinking that political incitement coupled with resource-sharing gaps contributed immensely to the bloodbath in this sub-region. And so the campaign sought to demystify these factors.

Visibly, some normalcy has been achieved. To this day, the calm experienced over there can be attributed to this campaign. Business is flourishing.

But going by past experience, this calm should not be taken to mean that long-lasting peace is here to stay. Mistrust and suspicion continue to colour people’s daily engagement. This is a historical fact that even the government knows. It is just a matter of time before tribal-inspired killing sprees pop up. That is, if mistrust will be left to reign unchallenged.

Pessimism aside. While the aforementioned factors cannot be wished away, one issue still stands untouched. The nomadic boy – the formidable tool of war – needs to be saved from himself. He is energetic but headless. He is a wanderer with no clear mission. A creature with one fixed mindset – his way is the way. He is full of himself to a point of erroneously thinking he can reconstruct the planet at any time and on his own terms. 

Tragically, he is aided by an equally shortsighted social structure that rewards bravery through the lenses of violence. Women are not far. They are number one victims of this skewed thinking.

This is how it unfolds. It is no secret that pastoralist women, though playing crucial roles, are nothing but submissive spectators.  

A simple experiment puts this truism to light. The sight of a woman driving out there elicits a crowd of onlookers seeking to know 'how a woman can do men's things.' 

Well, this is not to wholly portray the sub-region as Kenya's backwater. Some positive points abound – many of them. The under-capitalized energies of its young people is the issue at hand. The resourcefulness of the sub-region plus its strategic position cement the hitherto sidelined view that Nairobi will no longer enjoy the monopoly of economic progress. 

Kenya's northern frontier is the ultimate frontier that will position Kenya globally. You must believe this.

Let's get our assignment right. Hopes – though backed by abundance of resources – won’t materialize to economic success if this nomadic boy and his fruitless backers still wallow in the valleys of intellectual darkness. A reengineering of his mind is inevitable.

And this is what I propose. Shove this pampered nomadic boy out of the way. Elevate a woman and poison the oasis that gives life to hollow heroism. 

There is this interesting thing about nomadic men. They believe death is the only "proof" of defeat. That he who lives must prove his existence by outsmarting his rivals. 

I know at the base of this ethno-philosophical foundation rests very good intentions. It was meant to foster commitment and follow-up of obligations.

Reality, on the other hand, tells me a different story. Those wars, christened as cattle rustling, are partly necessitated by the unbreakable attachment to this foundation.

How can we make good use of this belief? The answer is the woman.

We have already noted that a woman stands at the opposite end of the all-male nomadic social structure. The inferior side. That a courageous, money-spewing woman evokes some sort of mystical power that pushes men into a role-rediscovery mode.

A significant number of aid agencies dealing with Kenya's nomads tend to focus on education, health and women empowerment. Good. Their achievements cannot be underestimated. On the same line, it is worth noting that their scanty knowledge of pastoralists’ social makeup has denied the nomadic woman this rare chance of projecting herself as the trusted tool of change.

Take the case of these NGOs distributing school uniforms. They ship these things from outside the sub-region as though local residents are unable to stitch them. Mark you, these guys will stop at nothing to convince you that their endgame is to empower societies.

Which begs the questions: Is the nomadic woman immune to empowerment? Is she unable to learn to stitch uniforms for her kids and earn extra coins from that? How difficult is it to think outside the box and provide robust answers to the people?

This is not just to the NGO world alone. Even local authorities are as headless as our nomadic boy.

I have this to tell them: They ignore nomadic woman at their own risk. She is the only trusted counter-weight to the nomadic boy. She personifies peace and prosperity. She is the seismic force that will recalibrate our nomadic boy’s mindset. 

Economic power to the nomadic woman!

Twitter: @mlemukol.