Retracing the Evolution of KPW

I remember the sweltering heat of Niamey the capital of Niger which played host to  the 33^rd ordinary session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights in May 2003 for at least two reasons. First, it is during this session that CEMIRIDE and Minority Rights Group International filed a Petition on behalf of the Endorois community over state annexation of Lake bogoria which 8 years later would yield a landmark decision that would energize the indigenous movement in Kenya and the continent. Second, and relevant to this article, is that I had the opportunity to  meet  Dr. Melakou Tegegne who was then working with Panos in Adis Abeba.In between escaping the unbearable temperatures in Niamey by partaking copious mugs of iced Karkade- the Sahelian beverage made out of hibiscus flowers- we conversed at length on models for advocacy of pastoralist rights.

Ethiopia, according to Melakou, had pioneered a very innovative concept of facilitating constructive dialogue between the state and pastoralists, namely the Ethiopian Pastoralist Day (EPD). An initial concept of the Pastoralist Forum of Ethiopia, EPD had grown into an annual event that was hosted under the auspices of the Ministry of Federal Affairs. It was unsurprising, given the stature of the event, for the chief executive of the country-the Prime Minister- to attend the events of the day. This discussion formed an important conceptual bedrock upon which the Kenya Pastoralists Week (KPW) was initiated.

In designing KPW, there was a clear appreciation that unlike in Ethiopia, in Kenya, state and media response towards pastoralism as a livelihood  was ambivalent at best and hostile at worst. Additionally, Kenya’s highly centralized state which concentrated all vital state functions in the capital, Nairobi, militated against the adoption of the Ethiopian model where the EPD, thanks to the federal character of the state, was hosted in various regions occupied by pastoralist groups on a rotational basis.  The dynamism of Kenya’s political milieu also meant that any advocacy process needed to puncture the popular imagination in ways quite different from the Ethiopian experience, where EPD had gradually become mainstreamed into formal state programming. The need to also ensure that KPW’s approach enabled the envoicing and ownership of pastoralist groups across the country weighed heavily on the program design.

Balancing the foregoing imperatives was a fairly unenviable task. In the end, the KPW was developed as a programme whose philosophy was to provide safe and creative national space for positive profiling of pastoralism. To deliver, KPW needed to grow out of community agency-through supporting the execution of ‘zonal events’- and engage the state at the national level through a week long program of activities.  Such effort aside from the demands of its scale and scope could only be carried forward through a multi-stakeholder approach.  It was conceived that CEMIRIDE would provide the technical and secretariat role but that the program structure would bring together a range of local and national advocacy and state institutions whose competencies would bear on successful implementation. Coordinating the local and national efforts and creating vertical and horizontal links for the panoply of actors with varied interests, messages, methodologies  and capacities was and remains a huge challenge. Yet, it is this cacophony, this untidy knot, that has continued to enrich the programme, sustaining it through the initial years when resource mobilization was a dreary affair to its current less volatile phase.

Through its ten year evolution, KPW has transformed into an important national platform for visible articulation of concerns of pastoralist groups but also an instigator of the elusive pan-pastoralists solidarity in the context of policy advocacy. The program has enabled communities dramatize their social economic predicaments as demonstrated for instance during the ‘great trek campaign’ in 2005 which raised national consciousness by way of an aggressive media campaign that captured the 1 month long trek of community groups tired of the state neglect of the Moyale-Isiolo road as a broad metaphor for the economic exclusion of Northern Kenya. Indeed, communities credit the KPW for the ongoing tarmacking of this important road that links Kenya and Ethiopia-with enormous economic potential. KPW has catalyzed the emergence of institutions, including the League of Pastoralist Women, which started as part of KPW’s attempt to increase pastoralist women voices in governance. In the ebbs and flows of Kenya’s search for a new constitution and its effective implementation, KPW has been a crucial site for enabling active engagement of community groups with such crucial national processes. KPW has not just been about intra-pastoralist conversation. Rather, it has also enabled policy makers and mainstream groups to engage with these communities not as noble savages of a bygone era, but as equal citizens of a diverse democracy. This legitimation for me was most apposite when in the 2006 KPW forum ,children from various primary schools in Nairobi held an art exhibition at KICC where they captured on canvass their innocent views of pastoralism. That this forum was graced by Njeeri Ngugi, the wife of Kenya’s celebrated literary giant, Ngugi wa Thingo, suggests the potential inherent in KPW as a space for a more rigorous cross-cultural conversation on the Kenya we should crave for. The pastoral parades that increased Nairobi’s traffic snarl ups and the penultimate gala night in which pastoral cuisine and couture abound evince an impulse to engage the  ‘other’ without trepidation.

It would be remiss if I were to suggest that KPW has evolved without the sweat and blood of many leaders. In its annals stand tall, men such as the late Eddy Ekuam who was the constant master of ceremonies at gala events;  the late Guracha Konchora, whose pen gave forth the first edition of the Pastoralist Post. Women such as Alyce Kureiya and Josephine Nashipae, too who have borne the pain and joy of carrying forward KPW’s visionand must be saluted. My worthy successor at CEMIRIDE, Yobo Rutin, who is now leading the charge in taking KPW to the Counties, cannot go unmentioned.

Perhaps then, the story of KPW is the story of relationships build, experiences shared and of struggles waged. Its nascent success presents important lessons, not just on policy advocacy but on the need to finally address the challenge of inclusion and belonging in the country. None of us should feel strangers in this commonwealth. Much remains to be done given the perfidious state’s paternalism of pastoralists as needing command and control type of governance in order to bring them peace, health, happiness, and other benefits of civilization . . . But, undoubtedly-and this must change- the extension of government control is directly related to protecting the economic interests of the Nairobi government-which often has little to do with the guys on the margins of our collective geographical space..

Long live KPW!