New Publication: Large Infrastructure Projects and Cascading Land Grabs – The Case of Northern Kenya

By Evelyne Owino (Project B03 Violent Futures), Kennedy Mkutu (Project B03 Violent Futures) and Charis Enns.

Abstract

From around the beginning of the current millennium, East Africa has been experiencing a wave of large-scale infrastructure expansion. Moreover, in anticipation of the new and improved market linkages that major infrastructure projects promise to bring, a rush to grab land alongside new and recently upgraded transport infrastructure routes is taking place. There is a growing body of research that documents the increasing prevalence of land grabs for infrastructure development. However, so far, less attention has been paid to other forms of land grab that inevitably follow in the wake of new infrastructure development as land alongside new and upgraded infrastructure routes becomes more valuable and desirable. In this chapter, we show how an ongoing transport infrastructure boom in northern Kenya is resulting in a wider cascade of land grabs. Various actors – including government agencies, foreign and domestic investors, and national and local elites – are acquiring land alongside upgraded infrastructure routes while existing rural land users are attempting to secure their access to land and ward off potential land grabbers. Ultimately, we argue that the frenzy of interest in land alongside newly upgraded transport routes drives a cascade of land tenure and use change, multiplying the effects that new infrastructure projects have on land.

Reference

Owino, E., Mkutu, K., Enns, C. 2023. Large Infrastructure Projects and Cascading Land Grabs: The Case of Northern Kenya, in Neef, A., Ngin, C., Moreda, T., Mollett, S. (eds) 2023.  Routledge Handbook of Global Land and Resource Grabbing, Routledge, New York. Full Text

More CRC News

group foto taken at a workshop

Dissemination Workshop in Dodoma: Discussing Futures of Rural Transformation

On 25 April 2025, the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) Future Rural Africa co-hosted a Dissemination Workshop in Dodoma, Tanzania together with the German Institute of ...
Read More »
Thumbnail of a video featuring anna-katharina hornidge

Video: Anna-Katharina Hornidge on Research, Training and Value Chain Development in Tanzania

Anna-Katharina Hornidge is the director of the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) and researcher in Future Rural Africa Project B05 Science Futures. She ...
Read More »
geothermal energy plant in Kenya

New Publication: The Unintended Socio-Economic Transformations of Kenya’s Green Energy Boom

In this new publication, Clemens Greiner, Britta Klagge, Samuel Owuor (Project C02 Energy Futures) alognside Cynthia Wamukota and Isaiah Nyandega examine the unintended socio-economic impacts of ...
Read More »
Group photo with the minister, Deputy Minsiter, Parmanent Secretary, the Board members

Professor Theobald Frank Theodory Appointed to NEMC Board of Directors

We are proud to share that Professor Dr. Theobald Frank Theodory of Mzumbe University, Tanzania, and cooperation partner of Project C03 Green Futures, has been ...
Read More »
image of an african savannah

New Publication: How Land-Use Change Shapes Carbon Storage in African Savannas

In this article, Liana Kindermann, Alexandra Sandhage-Hofmann, Wulf Amelung, Jan Börner, J., Ezequiel Fabiano, Maximilian Meyer and Anja Linstädter (Project A01 Future Carbon Storage) and ...
Read More »
Scroll to Top