In October this year staff from the IFAD-funded Butana Integrated Rural Development Project (BIRDP) in Sudan hosted a high-level visit of representatives from the Kajiado County in Kenya. The overall purpose of the peer-to-peer Learning Route was to share good practices in land and natural resource management (NRM) implemented by BIRDP. The participants from Kajiado County were particularly eager to identify new strategies to address potential land conflicts and environmental degradation in their own context, through better land and natural resources management, building community resilience in food security, climate adaption, and disaster risk management. The Learning Route was supported by IFAD, PROCASUR, the Government of Sudan, though the BIRDP project, and by the County Government of Kajiado in Kenya.
The idea of organizing a peer-to peer exchange visit between Kenya and Sudan started during the Africa Land Policy conference in Addis Abeba in 2017, when Kenneth Odary and Eva Komba from Kenya were sensitized to the BIRDP project while presenting a research paper highlighting a similar context to that of Butana. Both the Butana and Kajiado regions face similar challenges, with communities who depend on livestock as their key source of livelihood, and semi-arid landscapes. Kajiado County had earlier identified the need to develop effective adaptation and mitigation strategies to secure livelihoods and community development, and got interested in learning more about the BIRDP experience. After several months of discussions and preparations the Learning Route finally materialized 15-24 October 2018, when 10 Kenyan participants embarked on a learning expedition to the Butana region in Sudan.
The Butana region in Eastern Sudan has seen a rise in conflicts over water, forests and rangelands between settled farmers and pastoralists in recent years. An influx of pastoralists fleeing insecurity in neighboring South Sudan has placed even more pressure on limited natural resources in the area. To address these challenges BIRDP has piloted an innovative grassroots approach to land management. One of the innovative aspects of the BIRDP grassroots approach to NRM is inclusive and participatory involvement of local communities in land governance. Up to date, BIRDP has facilitated the establishment and registration of 12 community-based natural resource management networks in the project area. These networks, operate as legal entities, and have become an important bridge between community development committees and state institutions, helping rural communities address local development issues, reduce tensions between settled farmers and pastoralists and strengthen communities’ resilience to climate change. The networks have enabled settled communities to register communal ranges and forests to secure their customary land rights, and also to respond to natural resource management challenges as one entity.
During the Learning Route the Kajiado team visited the al-Idaid Network, where six communities have established a network to address specific community identified NRM challenges. Their most innovative interventions is securing hafirs - community water sources - by mechanically excavating pits to harvest rain water both for human and animal consumption and supplementary irrigation of women communal farms. The network has created and registered water management committees to manage the water infrastructure. The hafirs have been particularly important in improving access to water, reducing risks associated with long distances to collect water for both humans and animals , and can be considered a sustainable strategy for managing the adverse effects of climate change.
Another field visit was undertaken to the Tamboul slaughterhouse and a secondary livestock market within the Rufaa locality. Discussions with producers and butchers revealed that the traditional mode of animal production, in which the owners rely on free range grazing and selling of live animals and skins, has been dominant in the area. Full commercial value of livestock has not been fully exploited yet due to challenges such as harsh terrains, low literacy levels and cultural practices that make communities less receptive to change. However, through BIRDP, communities have been sensitized on benefits that can be accrued from the livestock sector and exposed to critical skills necessary for improving livestock production and marketing. Communities have together created the Tamboul butchers’ cooperative, an innovation brought in from a field visit to the Keekonyoike Cooperative in Kiserian, Kajiado County, Kenya a few years ago. Since then, the Tamboul butchers have constructed a modern slaughterhouse in Butana that can cater for all types of animals. The slaughterhouse design also includes a bio-digester to generate energy and produce organic fertilizer. As part of their future plans the cooperative intends to link meat production to markets and increase the quantity of food at household level to minimize food insecurity and enhance incomes of livestock producers.
Lessons learnt
The Learning Route was an opportunity for Kenyan and Sudanese counterparts to share good practices and forge stronger south-south partnerships. The Kajiado County representatives highlighted several lessons that can be learnt from the BIRDP project. Some of the critical lessons are highlighted below:
Gender and women empowerment
In the context of BIRDP, many women have taken up leadership roles in different NRM committees, for example, water management networks. The fact that women have been given the opportunity to manage water resources, own and cultivate land was an eye opener to the Kajiado team. At community level in Kajiado County women still remain vulnerable and walk long distances in search of water and pasture. Leadership at all levels remains male dominated. The Kajiado team was impressed by how BIRDP has empowered women at community level.
Key highlights also include the promotion of women economic empowerment through village level saving and credit groups. A Community Investment Fund promoted by BIRDP, has proven to be a crucial driver for the success of the project. The initiative has been particularly useful for women and youth who face limited livelihood options. The Kajiado County works with initiatives that seek to encourage women groups to work together and register in to cooperatives to access more opportunities, and would like to strengthen women economic empowerment a community level.
Integrated approach to development
BIRDP has adopted an integrated approach to development where a common shared goal at community level contributes to the realization of greater development results. By bringing in different stakeholders (men, women, youth) to implement project activities BIRDP has succeeded in creating buy-in from the community as a whole. This is an important lesson to replicate in comparable contexts such as the Kajiado County in Kenya.
Community ownership and leadership
The high level of ‘ownership’ held by local communities has proven effective in surviving the many challenges they face. This can be seen through community owned development work plans and strategies that include clearly stipulated common goals. In one of the communities visited by the LR participants community representatives mentioned that they have been empowered as a community and now have reached out to the local government to request support for establishing a local livestock market, accessible to women, as well as support to improve roads to facilitate transportation of animals to the market.
Food security
The fight against hunger and malnutrition should be preventive rather than curative. The BIRDP interventions have embarked on asset-building, livelihoods recovery/diversification and income generation to address food insecurity. Diversification beyond cattle rearing, including the provision of seeds and new agricultural practices has played a key role in realizing good harvests. Investments in nutrition training for women has reinforced the nutritional status at household levels.