Kenya

2014

Forest Peoples Programme (FPP)

100,000

Not fully accomplished.  Since January 2014 Sengwer homes (and their temporary shelters) have been continuously burnt, and Sengwer have been harassed, arrested and beaten, and the Kenyan Forest Service (KFS) sought to forcefully evict them from their ancestral lands at Embobut. This SRM supported the Sengwer in their court case to stop and reverse the evictions and to seek a ruling for the matter to be handed over to the National Land Commission (NLC). In the process, FPP provided legal, strategic and capacity building support for the Sengwer, as well as for the Ogiek of Mt. Elgon and the wider Forest Indigenous Peoples Network, to enable them to engage effectively with the NLC, policymakers and the public. However, the Sengwer  require much more intensive and longer term support to become organized than was anticipated, the court took longer than expected, the international attention we have managed to mobilize has been slow but strong and (4) the legal and policy reforms have had their deadlines extended (NLC Task Force until February 2015; Community Land Bill and Forest Bill until later in 2015). We have needed to advance on all these fronts—community capacity building, the court case, the World Bank assessment and the NLC proposals—in order to really enable a powerful Kenya-generated push for the resolution pathway we have created.