Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor (LAPSSET) and Indigenous Peoples in Kenya

The LAPSSET Corridor project, a major infrastructure development project that will run from Kenya to South Sudan and Ethiopia, will impact, positively or negatively, on the lives of more than 100 million people in the three countries. Indigenous peoples will potentially suffer the most negative impacts as a result of their having been historically marginalized economically, socially and politically. The recent discovery of oil in Turkana will add to the suffering of the Turkana peoples.
The project’s potential negative impacts on Indigenous Peoples include loss of land, territories and resources, increased conflicts, alteration of traditional livelihoods systems and the collapse cultures and traditions among others.
The Indigenous peoples found along the LAPSSET transport corridor include the Awer and Sanye hunter gatherers, the Orma, Wardei, Samburi, Borana and Turkana pastoralist and pastoral-fisher communities that include the Elmolo. These communities are some of the most excluded from the socio-economic and political fabric of Kenya and are least equipped to respond to the new set of challenges that the LAPSSET transport corridor portends.