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Summer School 2025
CCD – STeDe – Summer School – Kenya – 19-26 January 2025.
The first day was spent at Tangaza University as introductory moment of the fieldwork.
Strategies and actions for sustainable development, biodiversity and climate change at different scales, from national policies combining the Agenda 2030 and the fight against poverty and exclusion to decentralization and real actions of counties and municipalities in their plans and interventions for sustainable territorial management in the context of climate crisis.
Another topic focused on the Geopolitics of Kenya and the role of country on international policies. During Cold War Kenya received interest and support from the Western world to constitute a bastion against communism in Africa, and in the 1990s Kenya was considered a key player in the fight against terrorism. How Kenya is now perceived in international politics and for the future? What role is Kenya implementing in the international governance of sustainability and climate policies as country hosting United Nations?
The challenges of social integration in Kenya and the opportunities for peaceful societies will complete the vision from political and social dimensions.
The other three topics were devoted to political ecology of tourism, agriculture, extractive industry.
The state of art of tourism in Kenya allows to understand the situation of industrial tourism linked with neocolonial approaches on protected areas and infrastructures in the coasts and the actions of local community to manage just transitions.
Patterns of agriculture in Kenya will be confronted, framing the agriculture sector among industrial agriculture (commodities for exportation, energy production, …), the persistence of the traditional farming systems, the nomadic animal growing, the role of local food systems, the experiences of agroecology.
In this second day in Nairobi we dealt with the multiscalarity of policies and interventions related to sustainability, climate adaptation, biodiversity; in the morning we visit the UN offices and in the afternoon the Green Belt Movement.
Nairobi is one of the five headquarter of United Nations of the world with New York, Geneva, Vienna and The Hague. The United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON) represents the unique headquarter outside Europe and United States. It hosts the headquarters of two agencies: United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) and the regional offices for Africa of nine entities: International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), International Labour Office (ILO), International Maritime Organization (IMO), United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR), United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS). Moreover UNOH hosts the country office for Kenya of FAO, IOM, UNICEF, UNDP; UNWOMEN; UNFPA, WFP, WHO. The presence of United Nations in Kenya started in 1974 by installing the headquarters of UN Environmental Programme implementing the commitment of Stockholm Conference of 1972 on Human Environment (the first international conference on environmental issues) about “Institutional and Financial arrangements for international environmental cooperation”. In 1977 UN Habitat was opened and in 1996 the General Assembly established the United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON) as the UN headquarters in Africa. UN facilities are now requiring refurbishment and expansion, so the new Gigiri Master Plan will provide sustainable buildings, landscape performances, accessibility for people with disabilities. The project is expected to be finished by 2030, the design phase started in 2023 and the construction will start in 2025.
Green Belt Movement (GBM) is a grass root organization born in 1977 with the facilitation of Wangari Maathai (1940-2011). From the beginning GBM has been working on an integrated approach among women rights and environmental rights in an ecofeminist perspective facing the challenges of disenfranchisement and disempowerment in the communities implementing concrete practices of ecosystems’ restoration. The Movement evolved from a social arena in the late 1970s to a political arena in the late 1990s entering the national and international policy debate on environmental and human rights and acting in the struggles for the Green Space in Kenya. In 2004 Wangari Maathai was the first African woman and environmental activist receiving the Nobel Peace prize awarded fir “her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace” as results of the particular focus to the indivisibility of rights, particularly environmental, civil, political, and social rights. Wangari Maathai practices and reflections have emphasized decolonization approaches, ecofeminism activism and the agency of indigenous women influencing national and international activists and organizations.
The focus of the day was on agroecological farming and the connected rural and urban expressions. We visited different organizations and farmers implementing agroecology and organic farming for alternative food systems.
Mazingira Institute is a civil society organization working from 1978 with an integrated human and environmental right approach. Mazingira in Swahili means “surrounding” in term of social and ecological environment. It works at local, national and international level being member of HIC (Habitat International Coalition), RUAF (Global Partnership on Sustainable Urban Agriculture and Food Systems) and the Kenya Human Rights Commission. Mazingira is active partner for implementing the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP) of Nairobi and supporting different initiatives of urban agriculture and food systems planning in many Kenyan counties. The food system of Nairobi is a paradigmatic case studies to frame the complexities of the relations between food and cities to read contexts, understand and design resilient edible cities. Some elements are very specific for African cities, for example the role of livestock and urban pastoralism other are unique for Nairobi for example the camel milk production and camel related products. However, many aspects are more general for the management of alternative food systems in cities as: the relations with urban design the spatial planning, the interactions among urban and peri-urban farming, the role of forestry and rooftops agriculture, and the challenges for participation, inclusion, food security and sovereignty and climate change. Moreover, the practices of the organizations we meet are not just dealing with urban agriculture, but with transformative urban agroecology in a wide vision of urban justice combining food production with inclusive nature based solutions and green infrastructure in the cities.
During the day and the afternoon we met the networks PELUM (Participatory Ecological Land Use Management) and KOAN (Kenya Kenya Organic Agriculture Network), the Grow Biointensive Agriculture Centre of Kenya (GBIACK), Kenya Institute of Organic Farming (K.I.O.F). We had the opportunity to experience directly the three dimensions of agroecology: science, movement, practices. Practices mark the distinctions between agroecology and industrial farming for the way of dealing with seeds, water, soil, biodiversity, and ecosystems. However, the practices, disconnected form the other dimensions of agroecology, can bring to the capture of a label (agroecology) and the implementation of neoliberal greenwashing approaches to industrial agricultural commodities production. The voices and the experiences we meet on this day fall back into the framework of emancipatory agroecologies.
During the day participants entered in contact with two important aspects of the challenges in local resource ownership and management: the social dimensions of agroecology and the conflicts arising from different stratifications of global and internal colonial policies in Maasai territories of Mara basin.
RODI (Resource Oriented Development Initiative) is an organization born in the 1986 adopting a systematic approach combining food security, healthy and crime free society. RODI deals with justice in a holistic way integrating climate, environmental, food justice with the restorative prisoner’s rehabilitation approach. Rooted in a transformative dimension of agroecology RODI implements in a concrete way the role of agroecology of “leaving no one behind”. Considering in Kenyan prisons there are many youth and poor people, agroecology becomes the vehicle for restorative justice integrating the attention to prisoners, communities and victims. Agro ecological skills and approaches facilitate rehabilitation, inclusion and returning home of the prisoner by dismantling societal stigma, and creating protagonists in sharing new skills with communities. Behind social and legal justice RODI works on three other areas: Food Security and Agroecology, Health and WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene), Institutional Development.
RODI is partner of AFSA (Alliance for Food Sovereignty on Africa) an important network of African organizations for the scaling up of agreocology, the food soverignity, the policy advocacy, the institutional building.
Colonial discourses on efficient use of resources have intertwine the territories of Maasai in Kenya and Tanzania from the colonial times: from one side the discourse of efficient production of farming (or any other land use) against pastoralism, from the other the conservationist discourse on protecting environment against overgrazing and destruction of environment by Maasai herds. The post-colonial governments have endorsed these approaches continuing evictions of Maasai from their territories and encroaching the common lands. The wave of green colonialism subsuming the economic business of tourism in the biodiversity conservation reproduces again the narratives of ecological and economical inappropriateness of pastoralism, repurposing authoritarian processeses of land displacement, restricted grazing, and cultural commodification, hindering the Maasai’s traditional pastoralism and transhumant way of life. The visit to Narok and the Mara region give the opportunity to see the territory and to listen from the protagonists their alternatives and locally rooted territorial life project.
The day was focused on different approaches about natural resources’ roles and community forestry on people livelihood. We move from the Mara region to reach the city of Nakuru (the fourth city of Kenya) and Lake Nakuru national park. We enter in contact with another socio-ecological system in which the conditions of the lake and the situation of Menengai forest represent a sort of synthetic index of land uses changes and more recent way of recourses extraction through geothermal energy.
We meet firstly NECOFA (Network for Ecofarming in Africa), the NGO promotes integrated approach for sustainable ecological land use and management practices, empowerment of communities, visibility and identity of small-scale farmers, policy advocacy and interexchange of experiences. Among different projects of NECOFA we enter in contact with the “Bee My Partner” focusing on the challenging role of beekeeping in consolidating, from one side the people livelihood granting resilience to economic and ecological uncertainty; and from the other side the maintenance of ecosystems for the role of pollination. The example of beekeeping represents a paradigm of biocultural approach to natural resources management (IPBES conceptual framework). The good quality of life in good quality ecosystems are possible if: appropriated practices are enacted (anthropogenic asset), in a just institutional system capable to recognize the protagonism of people interacting with natural resources and to manage drivers of change; only in this systemic approach nature can contribute to people, as a result of alliance among people, nature and institutions.
The Menengai Forest Conservation Area of about 6000 hectares is maintained by the Kenya Forest Service (KFS). The Forest offer a variety of advantages to the nearby communities as grazing area, fuel, wood, building supplies, beekeeping practices and traditional medicine. The top-down strategy for planning and managing forests are changing with the adoption of Community Forestry Association Approach (CFA). The inhabitants can be included in the preparation of the Participatory Forest Process of the Management Plan (PFMP). Menengai Community Forest Association has been set up (MCFA) as network of actors for the PFMP process. The MCFA is considered an Innovation Cases by the Nakuru Living Lab (NLL), hosted by Egerton University, supporting the creation of regenerative and inclusive food systems (RIFS). MCFA has nine user groups: beekeepers, Plantation Establishment and Livelihood Improvement System (PELIS), Eco tourism, Elders (Kiama Kia Maa), fuel wood collectors, Tree Nursery holders/workers, Ndeffo Community water project, Curio shops and Grazers. The visit to Menengai forest and Menengai crater is the opportunity to confront policies and actions for natural resources management and to know directly the advancement of the processes.
In this last day, traveling back to Nairobi, we resume some key issues of the dynamics between rural and urban territories in a four steps path.
Leaving Nakuru firstly we meet the experiences of Seed Savers Network (SSN), member of Slow Food, focusing on two key components of alternative food systems and food sovereignty: the ownerships of seeds and the social ownership of local food heritage. SSN from 2009 is working on agro-biodiversity conservation by strengthening communities’ seeds systems and the enforcement of farmers’ rights to exchange, store, and sell seeds. Ownership of seed is the foundation of agriculture and food security under the treat of private individuals or organizations with patents restricting farmer rights to procreate, save seeds, share, sell, and trade. SSN is working to implement an Open Source Seed Systems (OSSS) in Kenya as commons for food sovereignty. The second step, around Lake Naivasha, is a contact with the paradigmatic case of industrial agriculture and commodification of resources and human work connected with flowers’ production for international market. Flowers, fresh fruits and vegetables account of around 10% of Kenyan export, however the territorial and socio-environmental account tell different stories. Intensive flower production has led to significant water extraction from Lake Naivasha, causing water stress in the region, conflicts with other water users including smallholder farmers and pastoralists. The use of pesticides and fertilizers in flower production has led to water pollution and soil degradation impacting. Expansion of flower farms has led to changes in land use, potentially affecting local biodiversity and ecosystems. Employment is associated with low wages and poor working conditions, with exposure to pesticides and other chemicals for workers and local communities. The commitments of business sector to adopt voluntary sustainability standard is under scrutiny by civil society organizations to require transparency, enforcement of regulations and respect of human and environmental rights.
In the global context of world urbanization, the arrival at Nairobi allows to know Kibera and Dandora and the dynamics of social activism. Kibera is the biggest sum of Nairobi and one of the largest in Africa, the informality of expansion of urban structure outside planning and formal urban management systems requires inhabitants to find concrete solutions for daily socio-environmental needs in different processes of territorial ownership and recognition. The case of Dandora, settled as dumpsite from 1977, still representing a social and environmental dilemma, documented by newspaper articles, research works, and discontinuous analyses on environmental conditions. Different stratification of conflicts overlay around old and new projects, so the visit will offer a first-hand state of art.
