Women advised on how to benefit from mega projects
Delegates during an indigenous women conference at Anka Resort in Nyeri.
The National Land Commission (NLC) has advised women from indigenous communities to form community land management committees so as to benefit from compensation from government’s megaprojects.
A two-day conference for women from indigenous communities heard that the majority of potential beneficiaries are yet to receive compensation through projects such as Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (Lapsset) corridor.
Registration of communal land has been slow, owing to conflicts among communities, lack of political goodwill from county governments, boundary disputes and unwillingness by patriarchal societies to allocate women leadership roles per new regulations.
The Community Land Act was enacted in 2016 and requires that group ranches and land that have been held in trust by locals and county governments be registered and communal title deeds issued.
This would enable the communities to make investments without direct involvement of the government.
But more than five years later, only a few community lands have been registered while others are yet to begin the process.
Women, youths and people with disabilities are supposed to be included on management committees, which are supposed to have between nine and 13 members. Over the years, women have been left out in management or ownership of property, with key decisions being made by men.
“Many communities have missed out on compensation from mega infrastructure projects. It is upon women to lead the communal land registration process so that they can benefit from projects such as Lapsset, Horn of Africa Road Project and mega dams projects that encroach on their land,” said Mr Barry Karanja, a communication officer at the NLC.
The conference at a Nyeri hotel was jointly organised by the Samburu Women Trust (SWT), Defenders Coalition and Trust for Indigenous Culture And Health (TICAH), with the theme being enhancing indigenous women’s meaningful participation in politics, land and natural resources decision-making processes.
It was attended by representatives from 16 indigenous communities in 14 counties in Northern Kenya, the Rift Valley, the Coast and Western Kenya.
Official figures from the NLC show that only 11 of the more than 100 group ranches and community land spread across 24 counties have complied with the Community Land Act.
The government has not set a timeline for communal lands to be registered.
Most of those that have registered and have been issued with title deeds are in Laikipia, Kajiado and Samburu counties.
Northeastern counties, Marsabit and Isiolo are yet to begin the process.
Ms Jane Meriwas, the executive director of SWT, called on county governments to set a budget to fast-track community land registration, which she said would see women included to empower them as decision-makers on managing natural resources.
Conflicts among communities, she said, had delayed the registration and called on the national government to come up with policy guidelines on dealing with perennial conflicts and insecurity.
Disarmament campaigns, she added, only subjected women and girls to gender-based violence, including rape by security agents.
Some of the communities represented at the conference were the Ogiek, Segwer, Ilchamus, Pokot, Samburu, Maasai, Elmolo, Eldorois, Oromo, Somali, Yiaku, Watta, Rendile and Turkana.
