Introduction A Delicate Balance Land Use, Minority Rights and Social Stability in the Horn of Africa Edited by Mulugeta Gebrehiwot Berhe 1 A Delicate Balance Land Use, Minority Rights and Social Stability in the Horn of Africa Edited by Mulugeta Gebrehiwot Berhe Copyright © 2014 Institute for Peace and Security Studies, Addis Ababa University. Cover pictures © Mulugeta Gebrehiwot Berhe Printed in Ethiopia. All rights reserved. The views expressed in this book are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute. ISBN: 978-99944-975-4-6 Institute for Peace and Security Studies Addis Ababa University Acknowledgements This edited volume holds thirteen chapters, including the introduction and concluding sections. Three chapters are products of commissioned research on Ethiopia’s lowlands where land deals are occurring, and all eleven chapters were presented and critically assessed at a two day international conference organized by the Addis Ababa University’s Institute for Peace and Security Studies (IPSS). The Austrian Development Agency (ADA) covered all expenses related to fieldwork (for the three commissioned researches), and the conference as well as the editing and printing of this book. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the ADA for their continued support of the IPSS’ research activities. Fana Gebresenbet and Zeynya Shikur handled the first phase of this project, before the actual conference dates, which included the preparation and wide circulation of the call for papers, development of selection criteria, and facilitating the selection process. Myriam Mamo and Zeynya Shikur were responsible for organizing the conference and creating a very favourable atmosphere for lively debates, with help from the IPSS’ Operations Team. Fana then took over, and facilitated the content and language editing of the various chapters. Maureen Kirkpatrick did the excellent language editing for the whole book, and contributed towards making the volume easily readable. The chapters’ authors have shared with us very insightful and pertinent cases. In addition to this, they have participated in the long editorial process by responding to our queries, comments and suggestions. I would like to thank them for their efforts in bringing this publication to fruition as well as for bearing with us. I hope that their and our efforts have paid off and that you will find this book interesting, informative and useful in your future engagements. Mulugeta Gebrehiwot Berhe The Editor iii Table of Contents Acknowledgements .................................................................................................iii Introduction Mulugeta Gebrehiwot Berhe...............................................................................................1 Section I: Conceptualizing the Social Relations of Land Deals The Global Neighbourhood Concept: A Chance for Cooperative Development or Festina Lente Echi Christina Gabbert....................................................................................................14 Implications of the International Investors Code of Conduct: The Case of the South Ethiopian Rift Valleys Ivo Strecker........................................................................................................................38 Section II: Socio-political and Conflict Implications of Land Deals: Cases from Ethiopia The Challenges to Pastoral Transformation to Sedentary Farming: The Case of Karrayyu Pastoralists Fekadu Beyene..................................................................................................................66 Land Use, Pastoralism and Transformation Challenges in the Afar Regional State of Ethiopia Mulugeta Gebrehiwot and Firehiwot Sintayehu...............................................................92 Socio-political and Conflict Implications of Sugar Development in Salamago Wereda, Ethiopia Tewolde Woldemariam and Fana Gebresenbet...............................................................117 Large Scale Land Investment in Gambella, Western Ethiopia – The Politics and Policies of Land Alexander Meckelburg....................................................................................................144 Conflict Dimensions of Large-scale Agricultural Investment in Ethiopia: Gambella Case Study Yonas Adaye Adeto and Ezra Abate................................................................................166 v Section III: Socio-political and Conflict Implications of Land Deals: Cases from Kenya and Uganda Land-grabbing in Uganda: Are Pastoralists Second Class Citizens? Mwangu Alex Ronald......................................................................................................192 Conflict over Ltungai Conservancy: A Case of Fatal Competition over Grazing Land and Water among the Samburu and Pokot in north- western Kenya Willis Okumu...................................................................................................................224 Re-considering Large-Scale Agricultural Investment as a New Paradigm for Mitigating Insecurity in Pastoral Rangelands: The Kenyan Case Mercy Mungai and Paul Omondi....................................................................................245 Land Acquisitions in Kenya’s Tana Delta Region: (Bio-) fueling Local Conflicts? A Youth Perspective Ulrich Pickmeier.............................................................................................................282 Conclusion Mulugeta Gebrehiwot Berhe...........................................................................................309 Short Biographies of Authors…………………………….......................……315 Index……………………………………………........................................…………320 vi Introduction Introduction Mulugeta Gebrehiwot Berhe The crises—food price, fuel and financial—of the last years of the first decade of the 21st century seem to have had a lasting consequence in the global South, primarily as these phenomena are among the most important contributing causes of the global rush for land. A combination of the food price, fuel and financial crises (triple-F crises as Hall (2011) calls it) has made agricultural investments attractive and lucrative. Brown (2012) gives more emphasis to changes in supply and demand in agricultural products in explaining the process leading to the recent surge in agricultural investments, which he argues has led to the institutionalization of a “new geopolitics of food scarcity.” A typical land deal is made between a foreign investor from such countries as the Gulf States, arable land and fresh water-strapped countries, and a government of a developing country with huge marginally used land. Governments of developing countries seem attracted by the appeal of job creation, increase in government revenue as well as export earnings, technology transfers and modernization. International financial institutions (such as the World Bank (2010)) believe that capital can be tamed, and these investments can be made in a manner which ensures social benefits at the local and national levels. Detractors of this trend however stress that these expected socio-economic gains rarely materialize, and often, losses outweigh benefits (for example, Li, 2011; De Schutter, 2011). With this latter perception, the investments are labelled “land grabs” and conceptualized as detrimental to the food security and livelihoods of local communities. There is use of “neo-colonialist” language by groups resisting these investments, which specially resonates with the African social memory of resisting colonialism in its various forms. Thus, what we see in the literature focusing on these land deals is polarization between the neo-colonialist and development theses (Lay & Nolte, 2011 as cited in Meckelburg, this volume), neither of which captures the reality on the ground in its entirety. 1 A Delicate Balance The surge in large-scale agricultural investments in developing countries has been accompanied by an attempt to understand their causes and consequences. The first publications on these agricultural foreign direct investments (FDI) were a compilation of the extent of the investments and an assessment of the actors involved. Media articles and reports from activist groups soon followed. By now numerous serious academic works have been published and various empirical (PhD) researches are being conducted (Zoomers, 2013), with a focus on theorizing as to the causes of the surge in investments, explaining how the investments are being implemented and whether or not the investments will lead to socio- economic gains at local and national levels in the recipient country. In this volume, we depart from this general academic practice in two respects. Firstly, we specifically focus on the pastoral areas of the Horn of Africa and base our analyses on empirical data collected at the local level. In doing so, the authors of the various chapters examine whether investments amount to an additional threat to the lives and livelihoods of pastoralists (the others being climate change, land degradation, conflict, invasive species and others) or if investments are implemented in a manner which augments local livelihoods and will thus contribute to pastoral transformation. None of the authors seek try to debate neither the in/ appropriateness of the states’ land policies nor the viability of pastoralism as a way of life. They rather focus on investigating the realities with the assumption that detailed examination provides a perspective that