tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/lapsset-49837/articlesLapsset – The Conversation2023-07-16T09:57:36Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2081132023-07-16T09:57:36Z2023-07-16T09:57:36ZQueer theory offers new views on daily life - even on infrastructure projects in Kenya<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536743/original/file-20230711-29-8ajdyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">We Are/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>I’ll confess I’ve raised quite a few eyebrows when I’ve told people about my <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2022.2062292">research</a> linking queer theory and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102459">infrastructure development</a>.</p>
<p>I understand the confusion. Queer theory is mainly associated with <a href="https://english.yale.edu/publications/fear-queer-planet-queer-politics-and-social-theory-ed#:%7E:text=In%20this%20diverse%20and%20balanced,the%20cultural%20politics%20of%20sexuality.">the study of</a> gender, sexuality and queer lives. Specifically, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10894160802695338">queer lived experiences</a> and how they are <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-feeling-of-kinship">culturally or politically perceived and mediated</a>. And how their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2015.1058755">struggles for recognition</a> are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/03091325231166402">accommodated or undermined by societies</a> that LGBTIQ+ people live in. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/being-queer-in-africa-the-state-of-lgbtiq-rights-across-the-continent-205306">Being queer in Africa: the state of LGBTIQ+ rights across the continent</a>
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<p>In my <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/03091325231173564">recent study</a>, I outline how queer theory could be further explored beyond its established areas of inquiry. As one example of this broader application of queer theory, I focus on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-092412-155522">infrastructure studies</a> – scholarship that analyses how infrastructure (like ports, railways and communication networks) is essential for understanding people’s lives, practices and identities. This is one of my areas of expertise, as I have written extensively about <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/anti.12947">multiple contradictions</a> of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12601">infrastructure development</a>, its social <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12474">impacts</a> and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02637758221125475">politics</a> in Kenya. </p>
<p>But in my <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/03091325231173564">new study</a>, I show how my reading of queer theory highlights the complexities of people’s lives. This requires letting go of any neat conclusions about who people are and how they engage with the world. This is important because it highlights inherent tensions that exist in any attempt to make sense of the world, such as understanding different impacts and effects of infrastructure development.</p>
<h2>Abandoning preconceptions</h2>
<p>Since the early 1990s, as a specialised field of knowledge, queer theory has come to have <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Queer-Methods-and-Methodologies-Intersecting-Queer-Theories-and-Social/Nash-Browne/p/book/9781138245662">multiple and often competing meanings</a>. One of the central tensions has been the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0309132507085213">question of identity</a> – how a subject understands her place in a world that is not of her own making.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/no-future">One lasting critique</a> that radical queer theory has voiced is that the very idea of identity – as something concrete and knowable – is a myth that entrenches socially constituted differences and divisions. That is, as soon as a person describes themselves, or <a href="https://www.salon.com/2014/07/13/the_problem_with_coming_out_the_flawed_cultural_expectations_of_gay_life_in_america/">“comes out”</a> as “queer”, they normalise identity as something that is fixed. But “queer” or “straight” are not stable, natural categories.</p>
<p>Instead, they are expressions of specific historical developments of a society. <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/sexual-hegemony">One branch of radical queer thinking</a> highlights that sexuality – its <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/the-reification-of-desire">limitations and freedoms</a> – is a result of <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/capitalisms-sexual-history-9780197545195?cc=us&lang=en&">specific power structures</a> that aim to <a href="https://www.akpress.org/calibanandthewitch.html">control different population groups</a>, subordinating them to the state, capital and civil society.</p>
<p>In this sense, <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/politics-of-everybody-9781913441081/">radical queer theory</a> approaches identity as not something who we are but as something that happens to us. Identity, therefore, is never a simple thing, even if we think we know who we are. </p>
<p>I highlight this in my <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/03091325231173564">study</a>, foregrounding queering as (un)knowing – knowing but not with absolute certainty.</p>
<p>This (un)knowability is a responsibility. Intellectually, it is a responsibility to acknowledge multiple tensions that constitute personal and social lives. Politically, this form of queer thinking is an invitation to engage with each other not in spite of, but because of, the impossibility of fully knowing each other. </p>
<p>This method of radical queerness has taught me to see my research subjects in a way that doesn’t jump to neat conclusions.</p>
<p>It allows me to think about and highlight how people’s lives that are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12474">shaped, interrupted and transformed by infrastructure development</a> cannot be understood and narrated through one single story that attempts to explain the many different impacts and effects of infrastructure development.</p>
<h2>Conflicting dynamics</h2>
<p>My research focuses on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2022.2062292">the construction of Lamu Port</a> as part of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12601">a regional transport corridor</a> supposed to connect Kenya with Ethiopia and South Sudan via <a href="https://www.lapsset.go.ke/">railways, highways and oil pipelines</a>. As stories in my research highlight, local fishermen dispossessed by the new port construction <a href="https://theconversation.com/kenyas-big-railway-project-makes-life-even-harder-for-the-poor-by-ignoring-their-reality-192789">struggle to make ends meet</a>.</p>
<p>In this sense, infrastructure can be, and has been, understood as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2022.2062292">a form of structural and social violence</a> that vulnerable populations are exposed to. And this is <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43497506">an important story to tell</a>. But this is not the only story.</p>
<p>The very same people, in spite of their struggles, at the same time experience these infrastructures as a possibility of a better tomorrow. They hope that they will bring positive transformations – jobs, travel opportunities, political and cultural changes – even if in the present it seems unlikely, or barely possible.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/kenyas-lamu-port-was-meant-to-deliver-great-things-but-as-the-story-of-local-fishermen-shows-it-hasnt-189258">Kenya’s Lamu Port was meant to deliver great things. But, as the story of local fishermen shows, it hasn't</a>
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<p>These conflicting dynamics can’t be neatly explained through identity categories that we use to make sense of ourselves and each other. Focusing on “class”, “race” or “gender”, for instance, only tells a story up to a point. But the contradiction remains – infrastructure development is both a kind of violence and an uncertain possibility of a better future.</p>
<p>Neither of these accounts – of struggles and aspirations – is more accurate than the other. Both indicate how people make their lives in a world that cannot be contained within, nor explained through, one coherent narrative. In this sense, there is no conclusive way to reveal the truth of their experience, because different layers of a person’s life intermesh into contradictions that make sense at times but do not at others.</p>
<p>In my <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/03091325231173564">study</a>, I outline how radical queer thinking can help make sense of these contradictions, while reminding us to remain humble and accept the inherent limits of knowledge.</p>
<h2>Point of celebration</h2>
<p>These limits include this article. At the end of the day, it (as any other text) is just one attempt – itself inescapably flawed, limited by my experiences, stained by inherent <a href="https://medium.com/the-philosophers-stone/the-limits-of-language-1c9febe85350">imperfection of language and words</a> – to present something that cannot be rendered knowable in its entirety.</p>
<p>The point, nevertheless, is not to fear this (un)knowability. Of ourselves and others. Of things that we both want to know and are unable to know. The world and other people always withdraw from our attempts to understand them. It’s precisely the demand of knowing others on our own terms that perpetuates harm. </p>
<p>In this sense, there is a specific politics implied in the avowal of (un)knowability. It ought to be a reminder of our enduring responsibility to protect this (un)knowability – to let others be other. A point of celebration, a sort of pride if you will.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208113/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gediminas Lesutis receives funding from the Horizon 2020, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Individual Fellowship (Project ID: 101023118).</span></em></p>Queer theory tells us that people’s identities are complex. If all research subjects are approached this way, we can understand their responses more fully.Gediminas Lesutis, Marie Curie Fellow, University of AmsterdamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1613012021-05-20T15:07:07Z2021-05-20T15:07:07ZKenya launches Lamu port. But its value remains an open question<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401887/original/file-20210520-17-14pdu4b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The first container ship to dock in the new Lamu Port</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Official image from LAPSSET</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Kenya’s newest mega infrastructure project, the Lamu port, has received its first ship. Moina Spooner, from The Conversation Africa, asked Jan Bachmann and Benard Musembi – who <a href="https://www.gu.se/en/research/controversial-corridor-exploring-changing-human-environment-and-security-dynamics-along-the-lapsset-development-corridor-in-kenya">study</a> the environmental, socio-economic and security dynamics along the <a href="http://www.lapsset.go.ke">Lamu Port South Sudan Ethiopia Transport Corridor</a> – to provide insights into the history of the port, the opportunities it presents and the concerns around it.</em></p>
<h2>When and why was the Lamu port project initiated?</h2>
<p>The Lamu port is part of an ambitious transport corridor between Lamu – a small archipelago north of Mombasa in Kenya – South Sudan and Ethiopia. </p>
<p>Kenya already has one deep-water port in Mombasa. Plans for a second one to diffuse economic dependency on Mombasa <a href="https://www.africabib.org/rec.php?RID=K00001873&DB=k">go back to</a> the mid-1970s. However, it only materialised in March 2012. The occasion was marked when the then East African heads of states – Kenya’s Mwai Kibaki, Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi and South Sudan’s Salva Kiir – laid the port’s foundation stone. </p>
<p>In its early ambition, the Lamu port figured as connecting the landlocked East African economies to global trade routes. More specifically, it was envisioned as an alternative outlet for South Sudan’s oil, which is currently pumped via the Greater Nile Oil Pipeline to Port Sudan.</p>
<p>With South Sudan mired in continuous war and Ethiopia upping its stakes in the ports of Djibouti and, most recently, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-an-ethiopia-backed-port-is-changing-power-dynamics-in-the-horn-of-africa-93308">Berbera</a>, the international ambitions of the transport corridor shrivelled somewhat. </p>
<p>Yet, as a cornerstone of the Kenyan government’s Vision 2030 development plan, it is now branded as a <a href="http://www.lapsset.go.ke">“game changer”</a> project. </p>
<p>Its new aim is to integrate marginalised northern Kenya into the Kenyan economy and the nation. Plans for the corridor include a pipeline, a railway line, a road network connecting Lamu, Garissa, Isiolo, Moyale and Turkana, a dam along Tana river, airports and resort cities. There are also plans <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7w3900K6lYnQWRnZi1sTV9DeDg/view">to establish</a> numerous industrial areas along the corridor. </p>
<p>We show in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/anti.12720">our research</a> that most of the plans are real on paper and government websites only. Nevertheless, the implications for communities across northern Kenya are very concrete. Beside the <a href="https://www.lapsset.go.ke/projects/highways/">completion of</a> the 500km Isiolo-Moyale road, the official opening of Lamu port marks the project’s most salient achievement so far.</p>
<p>Constructed by the China Communication Construction Company, the <a href="https://maritime-executive.com/editorials/lamu-port-kenya-s-transshipment-hub-risks-becoming-a-white-elephant">first three</a> of the planned 32 berths come at a cost of US$367 million.</p>
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<h2>What opportunities does the port present?</h2>
<p>Mobilising projections about future trade, the Kenyan government has <a href="https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/economy/chinese-company-close-to-sh250-billion-lamu-port-special-economic-zone-deal-2259896">persistently argued</a> that the Lamu port will become a viable and necessary complement to the hub of Mombasa. Local authorities specifically invest their hopes in plans for a special economic zone, though to date these have rather been illusive. This promises significant investments in the port and the creation of hundreds of jobs.</p>
<p>Since the port will primarily serve as a transshipment hub, it’s expected to attract key shipping lines by competing with the ports of Djibouti on the horn of Africa and Durban in South Africa. In addition it would serve key markets in southern Ethiopia and South Sudan. </p>
<p>So far, around 19 shipping lines have inspected the port. The Kenya Ports Authority <a href="https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/economy/first-ship-lamu-port-on-thursday-ahead-of-launch-3402858">anticipates</a> many will use it and take the generous promotional offers currently in place.</p>
<p>On the positive side, road works connecting Lamu to Nairobi via Garissa are well <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/business-news/article/2001409675/state-to-spend-sh25b-on-key-roads-in-lamu">under way</a>. And the new road between Lamu and Garsen has already reduced transport costs as trucks and travellers no longer need to go via Mombasa. </p>
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<p>Once the project’s highway towards Garissa and Isiolo is completed, the former northern “frontier” region may benefit from the connection to the port.</p>
<p>But there are big question marks when it comes to the overall economic value of a second Kenyan deep-water port. This concern is driven by the deficient infrastructural integration of Lamu and Northern Kenya. </p>
<p>Logistics experts also <a href="https://maritime-executive.com/editorials/lamu-port-kenya-s-transshipment-hub-risks-becoming-a-white-elephant">warn</a> that Lamu port has formidable potential to become a white elephant project because of the immense uncertainties about its core use.</p>
<h2>What have been the big issues around construction?</h2>
<p>Planning and construction of the port have yielded a wide range of concerns and contestations, <a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/counties/coast/2019-04-18-squatters-protest-against-land-grabs-in-lamu/">particularly on</a> land rights, the environment, local livelihoods and security.</p>
<p>Different rights groups have documented numerous complaints by residents about compulsory land acquisition. One <a href="https://naturaljustice.org/the-curse-of-compulsory-land-acquisition-in-lamu-kenya/">study</a> found that the government had taken more land than it paid compensation for.</p>
<p>Another major concern touches on the environmental impact of the port’s construction, some of which came to light in a 2018 <a href="http://kenyalaw.org/caselaw/cases/view/156405">High Court ruling</a>. </p>
<p>And local protests against the project have been <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/12/17/they-just-want-silence-us/abuses-against-environmental-activists-kenyas-coast#">met with</a> harassment by Kenyan security forces.</p>
<p>The economic livelihoods of hundreds of local fishermen will be disrupted by the port because its extensive restricted area restrains access to viable fishing grounds. And in contravention of a court ruling that awarded fishers about KSH1.7 billion (US$ 18.4 million) compensation for their economic losses, the government has delayed the payments <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S46BNVjsLsI">over disagreements</a> about the list of beneficiaries and the mode of compensation.</p>
<p>Concerns about employment opportunities to residents are also growing. So far, around 100 youths from Lamu have secured employment at the Lamu port. </p>
<p>Lastly, there are security concerns. In the last 15 years or so, Lamu has become a highly volatile region. Attacks by the al-Shabaab militant group have brought violence to the area and turned it into a highly securitised region. Security operations have significantly reduced insecurity incidences. But periodic al-Shabaab <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/business/job-losses-as-firms-halt-operations-over-terror-attacks-at-kenyan-coast-1434682">attacks</a> have affected construction activities.</p>
<h2>How should these concerns be handled?</h2>
<p>The concerns from the community are weighty and require serious attention since they affect many aspects of their daily lives. </p>
<p>Our ongoing research shows that many of the concerns could have been averted if due process had been followed from the project’s inception. This includes timely and adequate compensation to everyone affected by the project. It also includes proper and robust environmental and social impact assessments as well as considering qualified residents for employment opportunities. Finally, there’s the issue of addressing the perennial problems of land rights in Lamu.</p>
<p>It’s vital that Lamu residents are treated as direct stakeholders and partners to the project. Their voices, concerns and aspirations should be taken seriously.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161301/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jan Bachmann receives funding from VR-Swedish Research Council and FORMAS-Swedish Research Council on sustainable development</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Benard Musembi Kilaka receives funding from VR- Swedish Research Council. </span></em></p>The Lamu port is part of an ambitious transport corridor with the aim of integrating marginalised northern Kenya into the Kenyan economy and the nation.Jan Bachmann, Senior Lecturer , University of GothenburgBenard Musembi Kilaka, Doctoral Student, University of GothenburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1304042020-01-23T08:01:56Z2020-01-23T08:01:56ZUK-Africa trade and investment: who benefits?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311369/original/file-20200122-117958-9kgb8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (centre) with a host of African leaders at the UK Africa Investment Summit in London.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Hollie Adams</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There has been much <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-africa-investment-summit-2020-in-the-news">hype</a> about a major Africa <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/17/uk-channels-aid-budget-as-it-seeks-closer-ties-with-africa-post-brexit">investment summit</a> being hosted by the UK. Attended by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and an array of royals, a great deal of hopeful win-win-win rhetoric abounded linked to forging new partnerships for a post-Brexit future. </p>
<p>At the summit, <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2019/10/10/uk-boosts-trade-and-investment-partnership-with-ghana/">Ghana</a>, it seems, is being given top treatment as a favoured destination, while Zimbabwe appears to have been <a href="https://www.newzimbabwe.com/govt-plays-down-uk-africa-summit-snub/">snubbed</a> despite being <a href="https://zimbabweland.wordpress.com/2018/09/17/open-for-business-what-does-investment-look-like-on-the-ground/">“open for business</a>”.</p>
<p>UK aid policy these days is focused on promoting UK trade interests abroad, with the government adopting a global business promotion approach for UK firms.</p>
<p>The linking of aid and trade of course has a history in Britain. In <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2012/dec/12/pergau-dam-affair-aid-arms-scandal?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other">1994 the Pergau dam scandal</a> – in which aid was used as a sweetener for an arms deal – led to the commitment to untie aid. It also led to the establishment of a separate development department and an <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2002/1/contents">Act of Parliament</a> specifying how aid must be spent. </p>
<p>This consensus on aid since the mid-1990s, however, is now under threat.</p>
<p>Trade and investment can of course help reduce poverty, promote women’s empowerment and be good for children’s rights. But the opposite may be true too. There are many different business models – and so labour, environmental and rights regimes – with very different outcomes. We’ve been looking at some of these issues over the last few years across a number of projects. All were funded by the UK’s Department for International Development.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.future-agricultures.org/apra/apra-publications/">project</a> compared three broad types of commercial agricultural investment: estates and plantations; medium-scale commercial farms; and outgrower schemes. The team looked at each business model in Ghana, Kenya and Zambia, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/fjps20/44/3?nav=tocList">examining</a> the outcomes for land, labour, livelihoods and so on. </p>
<p>Cases included investments with UK-linked companies such the much-feted <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MJAZFuxKww">Blue Skies company</a> in Ghana, which packages and exports fruit produced by smallholder outgrowers. Another was the rather bizarre sugar outgrower scheme in Zambia, operated by Illovo, which is now largely owned by British Foods, whereby smallholders’ land is incorporated into an estate and they are paid revenues for the use of land.</p>
<p>The findings showed that the “terms of incorporation” into business arrangements really mattered. Too often estates or plantations operated as “enclaves” separated from the local community; some provided employment opportunities but frequently with poor conditions. Smallholder-led outgrower arrangements, where influence over terms was effective, had substantial linkage effects with the local community. </p>
<p>A decade ago, at the height of <a href="https://repository.uwc.ac.za/xmlui/handle/10566/2459">Africa’s land rush</a>, many investments were deemed to be “land grabs”. But our work argued for a more nuanced assessment. Not all investments are bad. But not all are good either. Linking investment to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s “<a href="http://www.fao.org/tenure/voluntary-guidelines/en/">Voluntary Guidelines</a>” is essential. This allows investors, governments and recipient communities to make balanced appraisals, avoiding investment riding roughshod over local land rights and livelihoods.</p>
<h2>Hidden networks</h2>
<p>Another project, part of the Agricultural Policy in Africa programme, has focused on <a href="https://www.future-agricultures.org/publications/apra-briefs/apra-brief-18-the-political-economy-of-agricultural-growth-corridors-in-eastern-africa/">agricultural investment corridors</a> in <a href="https://www.future-agricultures.org/blog/corridors-mini-series-anticipating-lamus-new-corridor-on-kenyas-coast/">Kenya (LAPSSET</a>), <a href="https://www.future-agricultures.org/blog/corridors-mini-series-accumulation-and-contested-commercialisation-in-tanzania/">Tanzania (SAGCOT)</a> and <a href="https://www.future-agricultures.org/blog/corridors-mini-series-agricultural-commercialisation-along-mozambiques-growth-corridors/">Mozambique (Beira and Nacala</a>). Alongside Chinese, Brazilian and other investors, UK investments are evident in all sites.</p>
<p>Again, our findings highlight the design of these corridor investments and the importance of a “networked” approach in which there are multiple linkages from the core investments (usually around infrastructure, large estates and mining) to the wider hinterland. Too often extractive “tunnel” designs emerge in which any impacts on wider development are very limited.</p>
<p>Our conclusions are reflected in <a href="https://agra.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/AASR2019-The-Hidden-Middleweb.pdf">AGRA’s excellent 2019 report</a> focusing on the “hidden middle”. This argues that the private sector investment with the most impact is usually small, often informal, and deeply linked into local economies. Clusters of interconnected economic activity are usually spontaneous, not planned as part of grand corridor or investment hub schemes. And when you look, the link between the vast number of smallholder producers and consumers is increasingly filled with many entrepreneurial private sector actors working in transport, processing, logistics and so on.</p>
<p>Private sector players are not missing in these instances, as is often assumed, but instead hidden from view. The UK-Africa summit’s focus on “investment” and the “private sector” emphasises large, formal operations, branded as UK plc. But it is the smaller, local outfits that are driving change in African agricultural value chains. They are the ones in need of support and investment. </p>
<p>Will the focus of the UK Africa investment summit be on supporting such smaller initiatives with the real potential for transformation, and developmental gains? From what I have seen, I somehow doubt it.</p>
<h2>What to guard against</h2>
<p>As the UK scrambles to compensate for the errors of committing to Brexit, it will be crucial to hold to the UK government to account for its aid spending to avoid business imperatives overriding development goals, with larger UK investors getting the upper hand and crowding out local alternatives.</p>
<p>Investing is certainly possible in ways that are positive for local economies and where land rights are protected in line with <a href="https://landportal.org/sites/landportal.info/files/Strengthening%20Land%20Governance.pdf">internationally-agreed guidelines</a>. But it does require a sophisticated approach that goes beyond the promotional gloss and the hype of international trade fairs. There’s plenty of good research on the implications of trade and investment on development in Africa, including that commissioned by DfID. Let’s hope the arm of the UK government that is promoting trade makes use of it.</p>
<p><em>A version of this article was first published on <a href="https://zimbabweland.wordpress.com/2020/01/20/uk-africa-trade-and-investment-is-it-good-for-development/">Zimbabweland</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130404/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Scoones receives funding from the UK Economic and Social Research Council, the European Research Council and the UK Department for International Development, via the APRA programme. </span></em></p>Trade and investment can help reduce poverty, promote women’s empowerment, and support children’s rights. It can also do the opposite.Ian Scoones, Professorial Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/909652018-02-18T07:54:16Z2018-02-18T07:54:16ZWhat Kenya has to show for sending troops into Somalia seven years ago<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206347/original/file-20180214-174963-1facoan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Somali man talks to Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) soldiers as they secure an area in the coastal town of Kismayu in southern Somalia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Siegfried Modola</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On 16 October 2011, Kenyan troops crossed the border into Somalia. The <a href="http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke/bitstream/handle/11295/76111/Migue_Military%20diplomacy.pdf?sequence=3">official reason</a> was that Kenya’s national security was threatened by the Somalia-based Islamist militant group, Al-Shabaab. The terrorist group had in fact carried out a number of <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/horn-africa/kenya/kenyan-somali-islamist-radicalisation">cross-border raids</a> during the months preceding the operation. </p>
<p>There’s still considerable disagreement about the reasons for Kenya’s military action in October 2011. </p>
<p>More than six years after Nairobi made the drastic move, Kenyan troops are still in Somalia and Al-Shabaab is still considered a threat to Kenya. Numerous terrorist attacks have been carried out by the Somali group, including the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/04/westgate-mall-attacks-kenya">deadly siege </a> on the Westgate shopping mall in 2013. </p>
<p>There are a number of possible explanations as to why the Kenyan authorities made the decision to engage Al-Shabaab in Somalia. These range from trying to prop up the Kenyan army’s image, to currying favour with the West, to making the north east of the country safer. Some strategies have proved more successful than others.</p>
<h2>Proving a point</h2>
<p>One possible explanation for the action is that the Kenyan Defence Force was eager to show that it could actually fight a war. In the run up to the action, the Kenyan military had been stung by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s mocking remark that it was a <a href="http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/688334-1233186-a5f0bfz/index.html">“career army”</a> ill-equipped to face a guerrilla insurgency.</p>
<p>Added to this were <a href="https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/13509/strategic-posture-review-kenya">Kenyan concerns</a> about Uganda’s growing military footprint in Somalia which could threaten the self-perception of the KDF as a superior military power in East Africa. So crossing the border deploying troops in Somalia was part of an exercise to <a href="https://textbookcentre.com/catalogue/operation-linda-nchi-kenyas-military-experience-in-somalia_10730/">enhance the image of the KDF</a> in the eyes of the population in the midst of allegations of corruption.</p>
<p>Some <a href="https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/114/454/1/2195212">reports have also suggested</a> that some senior officers expected that the Kenyan troops committed to Somalia could eventually join the African Union Mission in Somalia. The countries contributing to the mission at the time were Uganda, Burundi and Djibouti.</p>
<p>The integration of Kenya into the mission would have meant that some, if not all, of the costs of the military action would be funded by international donors. In these Kenyan officers’ calculation, joining the mission would mean the government would have to find less from the national budget. </p>
<p>Combined, these factors gave the Kenyan army a strong institutional interest in crossing over into Somalia. </p>
<h2>The Somali connection</h2>
<p>Nevertheless, the then Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/horn-africa/kenya/kenyan-military-intervention-somalia">appeared initially to have been hesitant</a> to approve the invasion. He seems to have been <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/africa/2011-11-15/why-kenya-invaded-somalia">persuaded to go ahead</a> by the Minister for Internal Security George Saitoti, the Defence Minister Yusuf Haji, the Chief of the Defence Forces Julius Karangi and the head of the intelligence Services Michael Gichangi. </p>
<p>An important decision maker in this group was Yusuf Haji, an ethnic Somali. Haji was known to be <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/kenya%E2%80%99s-intervention-somalia">behind the idea of establishing a state</a>, Jubaland, inside the borders of Somalia close to Kenya. Jubaland is a potentially rich region with lush rangelands and farmlands as well as offshore oil and gas deposits.</p>
<p>Haji was also known to back the push to unite his Ogadeni clan scattered across northern Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia. Leading academic and expert on Kenyan politics David Throup has <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/kenya%E2%80%99s-intervention-somalia">argued</a> that “personal economic and political interests of senior Kenyan politicians and soldiers from Northeastern Province’s Ogadeni Somali community” were decisive factors in the decision. </p>
<h2>Economic and military aid from the West</h2>
<p>There is a third factor. Since the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, Kenya has been perceived as a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article-abstract/109/434/97/72275?redirectedFrom=fulltext">strategic ally of the US in its counter terrorism efforts</a> on the continent. As a result, the country has become one of the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14747731.2012.627722?journalCode=rglo20">largest recipients</a> of Western foreign aid and security assistance on the continent. </p>
<p>Despite the close relationship between the West and Kenya, in the years leading up to 2011 Washington had become <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34378.pdf">increasingly critical</a> about Kenya’s inability to implement political and economic reforms. Towards the end of 2011 Nairobi was facing the possibility of Washington reducing its assistance. </p>
<p>Kenya’s incursion could therefore be seen in the context of a country propping up its image as a reliable ally in the global war on terrorism. Nairobi was keen to present the intervention as part of the ongoing Western-led war on terror. A crucial official argument was that the invasion was an <a href="https://www.nation.co.ke/news/politics/Risks-and-opportunities-in-Kenyas-intervention-in-Somalia/1064-1276082-a07ervz/index.html">anti-terrorist operation</a>.</p>
<h2>Making the northeast safe</h2>
<p>A fourth explanation is Kenya’s desire to make the vast semi-arid north-east safe for tourism and foreign direct investment. Further south lies Lamu, the focal point of the <a href="http://www.lapsset.go.ke/">country’s most ambitious infrastructure project</a>. Violent attacks by al-Shabaab in the north-east would not only keep the tourists away from the region but also deter potential foreign investors. </p>
<p>There are also great expectations related to <a href="https://www.tullowoil.com/operations/east-africa/kenya">oil exploration</a> and to the establishment of huge transportation systems linking Lamu port with the Kenyan and South Sudan oil fields and the 80 million people in the Ethiopian market. </p>
<h2>Outcomes</h2>
<p>Only a few months after the Kenyan army started the incursions into the southern part of Somalia, a <a href="https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Kenya-signs-deal-with-S-Sudan-on-highway-to-Juba/-/539546/1679248/-/mocq70/-/index.html">billion dollar deal with South-Sudan</a> was signed. And less than half a year after October 2011, <a href="https://www.nation.co.ke/business/Kenya-strikes-oil-in-Turkana/996-1373886-format-xhtml-10osubz/index.html">Kenya announced the discovery oil for the first time</a>. </p>
<p>If the main reason for the incursion was to make Kenya safe from al-Shabaab and attract foreign direct investments, the impact is less obvious. There has been some foreign investment, but far from enough. </p>
<p>If the main driver was to improve the Kenyan army’s image, it can be described a success. The defence force has <a href="https://textbookcentre.com/catalogue/operation-linda-nchi-kenyas-military-experience-in-somalia_10730/">enhanced it’s standing</a> in the Kenyan population.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90965/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gorm Rye Olsen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Kenya cited national security when it crossed into Somali territory in pursuit of Al-Shabaab militants. But there were numerous other potential aims at play.Gorm Rye Olsen, Professor, Institute for Social Sciences and Business, Roskilde UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.