De­volved gov­ern­ment in Kenya’s newly formed north-east­ern coun­ties, de­signed to ad­dress decades of po­lit­i­cal mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion and un­der­de­vel­op­ment, has been un­der­mined by dom­i­nant clans mo­nop­o­lis­ing power and grow­ing cor­rup­tion. Vi­o­lent clan com­pe­ti­tion and an­tipa­thy be­tween elected county elites and the re­main­ing na­tional ad­min­is­tra­tive struc­tures have al­lowed the vi­o­lently ex­trem­ist Al-Shabaab move­ment to ex­pand and op­er­ate with rel­a­tive im­punity across large ar­eas of the North East. Its at­tacks ex­posed se­cu­rity-ser­vice dis­ar­ray and caused a sharp re­ver­sal of al­ready stretched state ser­vices in this vast and poor re­gion that shares a porous 680km bor­der with So­ma­lia. To end the vi­o­lence and cap­i­talise on de­vo­lu­tion’s po­ten­tial, county elites must be more in­clu­sive of mi­nori­ties, co­op­er­ate across lo­cal bound­aries for in­ter-county peace and recog­nise the con­tin­ued role for neu­tral na­tional in­sti­tu­tions. Na­tional gov­ern­ment should recog­nise where prag­ma­tism can trump con­ven­tion and back new se­cu­rity ap­proaches that com­bine na­tional and county re­sponses.

Ram­pant crim­i­nal­ity, in­ter-clan an­i­mosi­ties and small-arms pro­lif­er­a­tion stretch polic­ing and ren­der highly in­se­cure the sprawl­ing refugee camps that host more than 350,000 So­mali na­tion­als flee­ing the con­flict in their coun­try. This is com­pounded by Al-Shabaab in­fil­tra­tion, rad­i­cal­i­sa­tion and re­cruit­ment – es­pe­cially in a bor­der­land re­gion where the in­hab­i­tants’ na­tional iden­tity is his­tor­i­cally con­tested and sus­pect. As re­la­tions be­tween the refugees and their Kenyan So­mali host com­mu­ni­ties fray, de­mands for the camps’ clo­sure are be­com­ing more stri­dent.

Af­ter lengthy bu­reau­cratic in­fight­ing and knee-jerk ini­tia­tives that smacked of po­lit­i­cal score-set­tling and risked alien­at­ing many Kenyan So­ma­lis, a new se­cu­rity ap­proach is fi­nally in place, led by se­nior na­tional se­cu­rity of­fi­cers who vi­tally have lo­cal roots (ie, So­mali her­itage) but are di­rectly ac­count­able to the na­tional ex­ec­u­tive. This has tem­porar­ily helped bridge a break­down in co­op­er­a­tion, es­pe­cially in lo­cal in­tel­li­gence-shar­ing, be­tween county com­mis­sion­ers ap­pointed by the pres­i­dent and newly-elected county gov­ern­ments that re­sented their se­cu­rity over­sight. Whether this ap­proach is ap­plic­a­ble to other in­se­cure ar­eas with his­tor­i­cally-strained re­la­tions with the cen­tre is yet to be seen.

A purely se­cu­rity-fo­cused ap­proach, how­ever in­no­v­a­tive, is in any event not a panacea. The new de­volved county gov­ern­ments must share re­spon­si­bil­ity for chronic in­se­cu­rity in­stead of con­tin­u­ally de­flect­ing blame to the cen­tre. Most im­por­tantly, the in­cli­na­tion, with some no­table ex­cep­tions, for a win­ner-takes-all ap­proach to county pol­i­tics will only gen­er­ate fur­ther in­se­cu­rity, as will the deep­en­ing prob­lem of graft. With the sec­ond “de­volved” elec­tions in 2017 promis­ing to be even more com­pet­i­tive than those in 2013, con­sen­sus on min­i­mum pro­vi­sions for cross-clan in­clu­sion is needed now.

New county elites un­der­utilise ex­ist­ing peace-mak­ing struc­tures (“lo­cal peace com­mit­tees”, com­mu­nity-based or­gan­i­sa­tions and cler­ics) and pre­fer “county-owned” fo­rums de­pen­dent on – of­ten com­pro­mised – clan el­ders, while keep­ing the na­tional gov­ern­ment and its good of­fices at a dis­tance and ig­nor­ing or sidelin­ing women and youth net­works. The gov­ern­ment should es­tab­lish an in­de­pen­dent com­mis­sion of na­tional and lo­cal ex­perts to of­fer so­lu­tions on the con­tentious is­sues at the core of the in­ter-clan fric­tions, such as bor­ders, land, wells and jus­tice and resti­tu­tion for losses.

Fi­nally, the na­tional and county gov­ern­ments ur­gently need to reestab­lish so­cial ser­vices (es­pe­cially health and ed­u­ca­tion) at the same time as they strengthen the se­cu­rity sec­tor. Ed­u­ca­tion can help re­duce poverty, pro­mote in­te­gra­tion among eth­nic and re­li­gious groups and fight ex­trem­ism; and, at least in the medium term, more re­sources should be al­lo­cated to lift its stan­dards. Donors, mul­ti­lat­eral and bi­lat­eral alike, have clear in­cen­tives to give de­vel­op­men­tal aid that sup­ports suc­cess­ful de­vo­lu­tion and en­hances Kenyan and re­gional se­cu­rity.

Nairobi/​Brus­sels, 17 No­vem­ber 2015