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Land Rights & Natural Resources Programme
MPIDO's Land Rights Programme has the objective to promote and secure the rights of Maasai pastoralists with regard to land and natural resources. The organisation currently has ongoing activities for this programme in Kajiado and Nakuru Districts.

MPIDO has two specific objectives that will help in attaining its core objective in the Land Rights Programme. These are:

• Specific Objective 1:
  To ensure the entrenchment of Maasai Pastoralist land rights in the national laws and policies to secure ownership, control and use of their own resources.
  The strategies employed to achieve these objectives are as follows: -
  1. Public Interest Litigation.
  MPIDO is involved in assisting community members in taking their land cases to court.
  The Pastoralist Maasai community faces a myriad of Land problems. This is highly attributed to lack of proper legislations that can protect their livelihoods, i.e. pastoralism.
  Corruption has also led to some influential government officials and corrupt staff of the Ministry of Lands to collude in wrongfully registering community land to individuals.
  MPIDO has partially supported communities in Namuncha, Maela and Ilkesumeti land cases, where community land has been irregularly and illegally taken away from the community members.
  The details of some these cases are as follows: -
  • Namuncha and Maela community land cases:
    These cases are based on applications for adverse possession rights over the land occupied by these communities in Nakuru. This follows threats of eviction faced by these communities in areas that they have occupied for decades. So far, the court applications serve the purpose of according security to these communities against the eviction threats, pending comprehensive determination of the cases.
    
    
  • ILKESUMETI land case:
    The Ilkesumeti community in Kajiado district has faced great challenges. Theirs is a case of fraudulent land adjudication, a case that has for decades, been the subject of political influence and major corruption deals involving influential politicians within and without the area, some minority factions of the community and other Government officials.
  • The Maji Moto community
    The Maji Moto community in Narok became victims of misappropriation of Group Ranch resources. Further in a similar incident to that of the Ilkesumeti case, this community was also faced with threats of dispossession of their land in a collaborative venture between the Maji Moto group ranch officials and corrupt government officials in the Ministry of Lands. This case now stands as a landmark owing to the success of the community in bringing to an end the oppressive systems pioneered by the group ranch officials.
    Through the support of MPIDO the Maji Moto community successfully managed, through a court order, to oust the corrupt officials and put in place a transparent system of management in which the community members are consulted and their concerns taken into account.
  • The ILCHAMUS Case:
    This is one of the few cases in our public interest litigation that have been concluded, whereby the Constitutional Court of Kenya found that the Ilchamus indigenous community of Baringo District, Kenya has a right to their own electoral constituency to reduce their marginalization and facilitate their democratic representation.
    MPIDO played a key role in the success of the Ilchamus case, by conducting needs assessment that identified that poor representation was the cause for their marginalization, and hence advised and financially supported the community to place the legal suit.
  • Apart from the financial support given to this community, MPIDO has facilitated awareness creation and capacity building forums at the grass root to ensure the empowerment of the community members to enable them take the requisite action.
    
  • With regard to the claim for redress of historical land injustices, MPIDO in collaboration with the MCSF and SIMOO, have managed, through a legal team constituted for this purpose, to develop a legal opinion on the said case
    The legal opinion document now forms the basis upon which the legal team will operate in a bid to seek a lasting resolution to the historical land injustices.
  
  2. Lobbying and advocacy to influence the national reform processes in Kenya.
  MPIDO is working with the communities to ensure legal and social security of land tenure for the pastoral communities in all its target areas.
  
  This involves advocacy and lobbying at different levels within and outside government to amend oppressive legislations in order to revoke titles that were fraudulently obtained and have the land revert back to its rightful owners - the Maasai.
  MPIDO has successfully mobilized the Pastoralist Maasai community to effectively participate in the various National reform processes that would subsequently affect their livelihoods.
  
  Some of these processes include:
  • The Presidential Land Commission of Inquiry on Irregular and Fraudulent Land Allocations (Ndungu Commission) and the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Illegal/Irregular allocation of Public Land (Njonjo Commission)
    From the onset of this commission, MPIDO got involved, in lobbying to the Ndungu commission to honour the Pastoralist Maasai community with an audience, which they did. During this meeting, the community in collaboration with MPIDO presented a memorandum, detailing the views of the Maasai community and indications of irregularly allocated land in the locality.
    
    This was successful as one of the corrupt land adjudications mentioned by MPIDO in the memorandum was used as an example by the Ndungu commission of vast land corruptions in the country.
  • Constitution of Kenya Review Commission
    Due to MPIDO's involvement with the community in the collection of views stage of the CKRP, we earned a position for our Land Rights Officer as a delegate in the National Constitutional Conference. This allowed for him, together with other like-minded delegates to lobby for a constitution favourable to the community we serve.
    MPIDO and other like minded Indigenous community organizations and representatives got together to formulate a technical team that was housed at the MPIDO office at Bomas of Kenya. The technical committee was mandated to developing easy reader materials on the constitution which were shared with all the delegates. The technical committee also organized the delegates into lobby groups to be able to lobby for various favourable elements of the draft constitution.
• Specific Objective 2:
  Capacity building of the target communities so that they can participate in protecting their land rights at the national and community levels
  
  • Civic Education and community training
    MPIDO has played a major role in providing Civic Education to the community members to prepare them in the presentation of their views to the Constitution Review Commission and other legal reform commission.
    
    The community members of Kajiado, Narok and Nakuru District were adequately prepared for these exercises and in collaboration with MPIDO, were able to present detailed memoranda highlighting their concerns.
    
    In the CKR process, the document that emerged out of the NCC, the Bomas Draft was favorable to the margnalised communities.
    It was however further amended by Parliament in a bid to iron out some contentious issues, this process mutilated the document and came up with the Wako Draft which to most Kenyans, was unfavorable. This was evident in the National Referendum that followed. The country voted against this document.
    
    MPIDO played a major role in providing Civic Education on the Referendum to the community. This resulted to the Maasai community voting in large numbers, and from an informed point of view
    
    MPIDO has also provided community training to the community on other topical issues in land Rights, use, control and management.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
  • MPIDO Paralegal programme
    MPIDO has a paralegal programme with twelve (12) paralegals, who are young men and women from the community.
    These paralegals have been given training by MPIDO and their duties entail:
    
    • To facilitate formation of Community Land Ownership Associations (CLOAs)
    • To create awareness on any developments regarding natural resources and human rights issues in their areas/communities
    • Update MPIDO on any problems or developments on issues of concern in their communities
    • Act as lobbyists for communities' problems from grassroot level
    • Advocate for administration of justice on issues of human rights and natural resource ownership and management
  • Oltepesi Community Based Resource Centre
    This has been established MPIDO at Oltepesi for effective information, data collection, storage and dissemination to allow for the continuous provision of data and information on a wide variety of land, environmental and indigenous peoples' issues affecting the target group.

Girl-Child and Women Empowerment Programme
The Girl Child and Women Empowerment programme has two components:

• Girl Child Education
• Capacity Building and Empowerment of Women

This project seeks to:

• Advocate for the improvement of girl child enrolment in schools in the focus area and influence high retention of the girl child in schools.
  So far this project has been quite successful, with hope for event greater results in future.
  MPIDO works together with the school committees and other local NGOs in organising for annual examinations for the schools for pupils in classes four to seven. The results of this exam are used to reward the girls, schools and communities that excel in a motivation ceremony held every year.
  
  
  
  MPIDO also works with volunteer teachers in each of the schools to provide guidance and counselling for the adolescent girls in the schools.
• Through this project, MPIDO seeks to discourage harmful cultural/traditional practices e.g. early marriages and FGM through awareness and creation, to both the community and the schools.

Although this project has been able to yield significant results with education at the Primary school level where education is provided for free by the government, a lot of difficulty is faced by the girls when seeking higher education.
Most of the parents cannot afford the fee requirements secondary or tertiary education. Hence, the efforts made to encourage the girls to complete primary education seem futile as their chances to proceed further are almost non-existent.

The project also seeks to promote the participation of women in development initiatives
This has been possible by:

• Provision and supporting their training needs in subjects that enhance their entrepreneurial skills. These have included training of local women groups on leadership and group dynamics, micro entrepreneurship, bee keeping and batik.
• Adult literacy classes, also conducted by community volunteers have been initiated in the community.
  The classes, which are open to all adult community members introduce the learners to numeracy, Swahili and social science. Majority of the adult-learners are women and they have demonstrated the ability to analyze profits and losses in their business activities. The adult literacy classes have also helped the parents to monitor their children's school performance.

Livelihood Programme and Drought Mitigation Intervention
MPIDO's strategic objective in the Livelihoods Programme is to enhance community capacity and to participate in securing sustainable livelihoods.

One specific objective of this programme is to reduce vulnerability to drought amongst Pastoralist Maasai, in collaboration with the government of Kenya and other stakeholders.
The strategies employed by MPIDO to achieve this objective are:

• Livestock production.
  Investment in livestock marketing and disease control is a top priority if food insecurity is to be solved among pastoralists.
  MPIDO has embarked on upgrading the local East African Zebu through cross breeding with a higher breed such as Sahiwal (good for both beef and milk production) so as to yield a higher market price faster than the local breeds and also increase the production level of milk.
  
  Pastoralists in Kajiado currently understand that land is becoming less available for free range grazing due to increased urbanisation. It is hoped that an increase in milk production will give livestock keepers an opportunity to keep less animals per unit of land, while maintaining the subsistence needs of their families. This will ease the pressure on vast land demands.
• Water Development.
  Water is an essential need for the pastoralists and their livestock, lack of which, leads to not just emaciation but also death.
  MPIDO is currently in the process of rehabilitating 3 already existing boreholes, construction of 3 new earth dams and desilting of 6 existing dams in the area.
  The result of these activities is expected to:
  • Reducing workloads on women and children
  • Increasing time spent by children in school rather than in search of water
  • Reduction in the spread of waterborne diseases
• Diversifying Livelihoods.
  In the recent past prolonged drought has led to many pastoralists dropping out from a purely pastoralist economy and becoming destitute due to lack of or experience in alternative livelihoods.
  MPIDO is encouraging the local community, especially women to invest in alternative sources of livelihoods e.g. bee keeping, livestock marketing and sell of beadwork.

Maasai Indigenous Peoples' Human Rights Initiative
MPIDO is currently implementing a Human rights programme titled Maasai Indigenous Peoples' Rights Initiative.
The overall objective of the project is to empower the Maasai Indigenous Peoples in Kenya's Kajiado, Narok and Nakuru districts through capacity building in order to enable them to meaningfully and effectively participate in processes that would promote and secure their livelihoods and the whole range of their human rights as well as rights to land, natural resources and to ensure ecological protection

The project methodology includes:

1. Applied Research - conducting of research on three selected key issues: -
   • Land & natural resources rights and the protection and promotion of a healthy environment among the Maasai indigenous peoples with particular emphasize on the impact of the shift from communal to individual land ownership.
   • The Millennium Development Goals, with emphasize on indigenous peoples in Kenya
   • Access to rights by the Maasai peoples, especially women and children, with emphasize on the girl child.
2. Documentation and Dissemination - the findings of the above research are published and disseminated to the community and other stakeholders.
3. Training Workshops - community empowerment workshops on the research findings and other topics of interest to indigenous peoples are covered at the workshops. They include the international and regional instruments for indigenous peoples, past & present injustices against the community and avenues for redress, lobbying tactics and strategies for community mobilization, and the importance of democratic participation in community decision-making processes.
4. Participation in International forums on Indigenous Peoples issues.
   The programme will send a number of Maasai Indigenous Peoples representatives to the various Indigenous Peoples international meetings to participate and present the research findings mentioned above.
   Towards the end of each project year these delegates get an opportunity to share their experiences at the international forums with other indigenous peoples and stakeholders, in a workshop. They are expected to provide leadership in lobbying and promotion of the rights of indigenous peoples in the country.
   For the purposes of gender equity, the program will strives to ensure that a third of representatives sent to each of its local and international meetings are women

Networking and Building Alliances
The strategic objective of this programme is to build unity and solidarity among the Pastoralist in Kenya, regionally and internationally.
MPIDO recognises that little can be achieved when lobbying for policy changes, both locally and internationally, without working with like minded institutions and individuals.
In this regard, MPIDO boasts of a wide network of partners, and welcomes any other organisations/ willing to partner with us to contact us.

Some of our existing partners and organisations we hold membership are:

• MPIDO is currently the Chair of the World Alliance for Mobile Indigenous Peoples.
  The Alliance encompasses those indigenous peoples whose livelihoods have depended on extensive common property use of natural resources and whose mobility is both a management strategy for dealing with sustainable use and conservation and a distinctive source of cultural identity.
• RECONCILE / IIED - MPIDO sits on the board.
• Kenya Land Alliance
• Maa Civil Society Forum - MPIDO is a founding member of the Forum and also hosts its activities in our offices.
• MPIDO has also participated, chaired or coordinated various National Committees for the promotion of Indigenous Pastoralist Communities' rights and sustainable development.
  Some of them include:
  
  • MPIDO has also hosted the Eastern Africa Regional Conference for Indigenous Peoples' intended to boost participation in the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples Issues.
  • 1st and 2nd Meeting of the PHGEMN, with the purpose of evaluating the progress of the Network and devising a way forward.
• African Commission for Human and Peoples' Rights:
  MPIDO has observer status with the ACHPR and is a very active participant in this Commission's periodic sessions.
  MPIDO has made various recommendations to the Commission on the need to have the Commission implement its resolutions on the means of promoting the recognition and protection of indigenous peoples' and minority groups' rights in Africa.
• UNDP:
  MPIDO has taken part in the HURIST (Human Rights Strengthening) pilot project convened by UNDP in Collaboration with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) whose aim is to devise ways to mainstream indigenous and marginalized groups' rights into the operation systems of UNDP.
• UNFPII - United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples Issues
• UN Draft Declaration for the Rights of Indigenous People.