RESILIENT RANGELANDS
Building Food System Resilience in Kenya’s Rangelands by Integrating Water, Food, and Biodiversity Kenya’s arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs) cover 80 percent of the country and support millions of people, livestock, and wildlife. Yet recurrent droughts, invasive species, and widespread land degradation have left communities increasingly vulnerable, driving conflict between farmers, herders, and wildlife. Traditional sectoral interventions have struggled to address these interconnected pressures. The Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus offers a more integrated approach, recognising the interdependence of resources and the need to manage them collectively. This approach was tested through the LISTEN project (Laikipia, Isiolo, Samburu Transforming the Environment through Nexus), which brought together national and county governments, pastoralist and farming communities, civil society organizations, and research institutions. The project demonstrated how cross-sectoral partnerships can transform vulnerable ecosystems, connecting rangeland restoration, water management, and food security.
The Biodiversity–Food Systems Challenge
Integrated Biodiversity–Food Systems Approach
Pastoralist and agropastoral communities in Kenya’s ASALs face chronic food insecurity and are among the most marginalized groups in the country. Poverty, environmental degradation, and limited resources reinforce one another in a vicious cycle that undermines sustainable land management, reduces productivity, and accelerates rangeland degradation.
Rangeland ecosystems in Kenya face overlapping pressures that cannot be addressed through sector-specific interventions. The WEF Nexus offers a more integrated pathway, prioritising landscape- and system-based solutions. In October 2020, Netherlands Development Organization SNV launched the €3.6 million LISTEN project in partnership with the Frontier Counties Development Council (FCDC) and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). The project applied the Nexus approach through a landscape-scale engagement process that connected diverse stakeholders, from herders to government agencies. Water proved to be the critical lever, with improvements in its management unlocking wider benefits for food security, rangeland health, and livelihoods across the Ewaso Nyíro basin.
Rangelands are vast but understudied ecosystems, and conventional sectoral interventions have largely failed the communities whose livelihoods depend on them. Increasingly degraded landscapes and unreliable water sources threaten pastoralist livelihoods, while biodiversity loss compounds the crisis. It undermines the very ecosystems and resources on which food production and livelihoods depend. Invasive species spread unchecked, indigenous livestock breeds and drought-tolerant crops face genetic erosion, and native vegetation vital to ecosystem health continues to disappear. Water scarcity adds further pressure, intensifying competition between upstream and downstream users, farmers and herders, and human settlements and wildlife.
KEY TERMS Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus: An integrated approach recognizing that water, energy, and food systems are interdependent—actions in one sector affect the others.
Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs): Community savings groups providing rotating credit and safety nets for households.
Rangeland Management: Systematic planning and management of grazing lands to maintain ecological health and livestock productivity.
Water Resource User Associations (WRUAs): Local institutions coordinating shared water use and resolving conflicts within catchments.
Learn more about Kenya’s rangeland management
Agroforestry: Land-use system combining trees with crops and/or livestock to improve soil, water, and income.