11:00 - 12:30
Room: Aston Webb – WG12
Stream: Precarious Prospects: Corridors, Grabs and Extractions at the Pastoral Margins
Chair/s:
Ian Scoones, Jeremy Lind
The Political Ecology of Irrigation Development: A case from the lower Turkwel River basin, Turkana County, Kenya
Gregory Akall
Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge

For at least five decades, irrigation development has been approached as the solution to recurrent drought in Turkana. In the early 1960s, developers established modern small-scale irrigation schemes along the lower Turkwel River basin. The schemes were meant to improve food security, to provide alternative livelihood opportunities to locals decimated by drought and raids, and to modernize a society deemed “backward” and violent. One example is the Turkwel irrigation scheme initiated by the Government of Kenya and FAO in 1966.This case study looks at what happened to the Amasikin Turkana (poor or stockless), inhabitants of the Ng’monia territorial section (people of the riparian forests) after they became settled on the Turkwel irrigation scheme. It demonstrates that the outcomes of the irrigation scheme were far from what was expected: only a few benefited, and where they benefited it was from their own efforts, not from the initiatives of the development organizations. The irrigation scheme activities of the past were characterized by delay, waste of resources, lack of engagement with the local communities, including environmental degradation. Yet, the same approaches to irrigation appear to continue today.


Reference:
Th-A37 Precarious Prospects 3-P-004
Presenter/s:
Gregory Akall
Presentation type:
Panel
Room:
Aston Webb – WG12
Chair/s:
Ian Scoones, Jeremy Lind
Date:
Thursday, 13 September
Time:
11:45 - 12:00
Session times:
11:00 - 12:30