Short Abstract

Development has been broadly defined as an objective toward which countries are pursuing and a mechanism incorporating interrelationships. While this description may be represented in many aspects of life, the freedom to live a nomadic life for the pastoralist community is not seen as development.

Long Abstract

The Horn of Africa is famous for violence, principally driven by conflict over natural resources, mainly water and pasture. The region contains the largest pastoralist population globally, who are nomads and depend on livestock for their livelihood. (K. Mkutu, 2018). The harsh environmental conditions in the semi-arid and arid areas that the pastoralists live force them to migrate from region to region in search of water and pastureland(Leff et al., 2009). The cattle are kept in temporary cattle camps that are assembled to protect them from neighbouring tribes and prevent them from wandering off. Water demand is continuously under pressure from the growing urban communities, ranchers, wildlife and recently horticultural farms. During the dry season, the water sources dry up, making the earth dry and patched. This, more often than not, leads to conflict between communities and security providers. In the recent past, the proliferation of high powered assault rifles and the trade in small arms has turned what used to be minor clashes into sometimes protracted ethnic fighting, which calls for government intervention(Leff et al., 2009). Past pastoralists had their own ways of dealing with drought; however, irregular weather patterns resulting from climate change and post-colonial policies that restrained the movement of the nomads make the inter and intra community clashes more common(Leff et al., 2009). The post-independence laws promote the privatisation of land advocating for the subdivision of communal lands that are turned into private rances and conservancies by registering the pastoral groups’ private rights and incorporating the commercialisation of livestock production(Ng’ang’a et al., 2020). Subsequently, this has resulted in limited access to pastureland by the individual pastoral groups leading to the witnessing of more violent conflict.

This lightening panel seeks to bring together a discussion on how to decolonise nomadit way of life.