COMMUNITY LAND GOVERNANCE REFORMS AND COMMUNITY LAND GOVERNANCE EFFECTIVENESS IN NORTHERN KENYA'S ARID AND SEMI-ARID LANDS
COMMUNITY LAND GOVERNANCE REFORMS AND COMMUNITY LAND GOVERNANCE EFFECTIVENESS IN NORTHERN KENYA'S ARID AND SEMI-ARID LANDS
Yunis Haji Omar Mohamed
ABSTRACT
Community land governance is central to livelihood security, social cohesion and sustainable natural-resource management in Kenya's arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs), where pastoral production depends on collective access to extensive grazing landscapes, water resources, migration corridors and drought refugia. Historically, Kenya's land policy largely privileged individualized and formalized tenure, creating institutional tensions with customary systems of communal land management. The Constitution of Kenya 2010 represented a significant policy transformation by recognizing community land as a distinct category of land and establishing principles of equitable access, security of land rights, transparent administration and sustainable management. This study examined the relationship between community land governance reforms and community land governance effectiveness in Northern Kenya's ASALs. The study employed a cross-sectional survey dataset of 384 respondents for illustrative quantitative analysis. Six dimensions of community land governance reforms are examined: recognition of customary land rights, participatory land decision-making, institutional accountability, community land-use planning, conflict-resolution mechanisms and community participation in natural-resource management. The results indicate positive and statistically significant relationships between all six reform dimensions and governance effectiveness. Participatory land decision-making recorded the strongest standardized effect, followed by institutional accountability and recognition of customary land rights. The model explains approximately 61% of variation in community land governance effectiveness. The study argues that effective community land governance requires more than formal legal recognition; it depends on institutional arrangements that combine customary legitimacy, inclusive participation, accountability, adaptive land-use planning and community involvement in natural-resource management. The study contributes to land-governance scholarship by conceptualizing governance effectiveness as a multidimensional outcome of reform rather than equating reform with land titling alone.
