International Alert Horn of Africa

02/10/2026

Communities across the Kerio Valley, from Chepkogho in West Pokot, Sambalat in Elgeyo Marakwet, to Ngoron in Baringo County, are transitioning from insecurity towards recovery, restoration and rebuilding after years of conflict.

Following the completion of the government security operation to recover illegal fi****ms, the region is regaining a sense of normalcy. However, while the guns are gone, unresolved differences and the effects of post-conflict trauma remain. At the same time, climate change continues to affect livelihoods, food security and the environment, increasing community vulnerability.

To help communities navigate these challenges, International Alert, with funding from Irish Aid, is providing tailored microgrants to support climate adaptation projects that improve food security, restore the environment and strengthen household incomes.
Importantly, these initiatives are also creating spaces for sustained positive contact by bringing communities together around shared priorities and opportunities to rebuild trust, strengthen cooperation, and contribute to regional stability.

🌱 In the highland areas, neighboring groups are coming together to restore ecosystems and protect critical water sources that sustain downstream communities. Through joint tree nurseries, reforestation, and mixed crop farming, they are restoring degraded land while strengthening food security.

🥭 In the lowland areas, community groups are partnering to diversify livelihoods and strengthen economic resilience. Through commercial fruit tree nurseries, furrow-irrigated farming, and rearing resilient Galla goats, households are building shared economic interests and collective stability.

When communities have shared interests, they have more opportunities to work together. These shared initiatives are providing space to cross-learn, heal broken ties, and build a more resilient and peaceful future.

ClimateSecurity

16/09/2026

This week, International Alert Horn of Africa, alongside representatives from Burundi, DRC, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia, is taking part in the Regional Forum on Natural Resource and Mineral Governance, Development, and Peace in the Great Lakes Region in Nairobi, Kenya.

The forum is organized through the International Alert DRC’s Madini kwa Amani na Maendeleo project from 15th to 17th Sept 2026.

It is bringing country-level experiences into a shared regional conversation to identify cross-border issues, agree on common priorities, explore joint solutions, and develop a collective advocacy agenda. The focus is on what organizations across the region can do together, who needs to be engaged, and what concrete commitments are needed to move agreed priorities forward.

This provides a timely platform for governments, civil society, communities, private sector actors, and regional institutions to consider how the priorities emerging from these discussions can be translated into stronger policies, greater accountability, and more effective mineral governance across the region.

Priority areas identified for continued regional engagement include:
• Strengthening community participation in decisions on natural resources and mining
• Improving transparency and accountability in mineral value chains
• Addressing conflict and human rights concerns linked to natural resource extraction
• Cross-country learning and knowledge sharing
• Formalization of artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM)
• Implementation and operationalization of mining laws and regulations
• Fair and equitable benefit sharing, especially for ASMs and mining communities
• Cross-border collaboration on mineral governance
• Protection of community and human rights in mining areas
• Access to information on mineral resources, revenues, and agreements
• Creating stronger links between national and regional advocacy on shared regional priorities

12/08/2026

Creating spaces for young people to speak, lead, and influence decisions is an important part of building peaceful and resilient communities.

Although their circumstances may differ, many young people share the same hopes: to live in safety, access opportunities, build a decent future, and have a voice in the decisions that affect their lives.

Partners in practice, not just principle. Young people bear conflict's harshest costs while also holding immense capacity to change it.

Over a decade since the adoption of the Youth, Peace and Security agenda, progress with meaningful engagement and real power-sharing has been slow, even as that potential keeps going untapped.

We spoke with Kadiatou Keita, Alert’s Sahel Hub Director, and Emmy Auma, International Alert Horn of Africa Hub Director, about why "for" young people still happens far more often in peacebuilding than "with" and "by" young people.

Through our experience in conflict-affected regions, we've seen that leaving young people out isn't just a problem on its own. It's a symptom of a deeper tendency toward fragmented responses, when what these contexts need is genuine participation and integrated solutions.

⬇️ Read Kadiatou and Emmy’s interview about the main barriers holding youth engagement back, the cost of inaction, and where real, positive change could realistically start.

💭 Where have you seen youth engagement move from symbolic to meaningful? What made the difference? Let us know in the comments below.
____________________

12/08/2026

The young people most affected by conflict are often the least visible in conversations about peace.

For peacebuilding to be meaningful, young people need to be heard, supported, and trusted as partners in building the communities they want to live in.

🕊️

10/08/2026

“We have survived many difficult moments. We now need spaces to heal.”

This was one of the powerful messages that emerged during four days of trauma awareness, healing, reconciliation and community resilience training with participants from the Marakwet, Pokot and Baringo communities in the Kerio Valley this week.

The training explored an important but often overlooked part of peacebuilding: how trauma, climate shocks and conflict can reinforce one another and why healing and resilience need to be part of efforts to build lasting peace.

For communities in the Kerio Valley, difficult experiences have come in many forms. Participants spoke about losing loved ones, livestock, homes, property and livelihoods through violence and insecurity, but also through droughts, floods, landslides, and other climate-related disasters. Recent disasters, including the devastating landslides and floods in Chesongoch, have left communities grieving, displaced and rebuilding their lives.

The training gave participants space to understand trauma and recognise that painful experiences can affect how people think, relate to others and respond to future crises. It also explored how unhealed trauma can contribute to cycles of fear, anger, withdrawal and violence, while supportive relationships, positive leadership, safety and opportunities to make choices can help communities break those cycles.

Participants also reflected on the strengths that have helped communities survive difficult times: talking to one another, prayer, peace meetings, intermarriage, shared markets, cross-border relationships, peace tournaments, local peace committees and collective problem-solving.

Practical ideas for the road ahead were also discussed:

* restoring livelihoods, e.g., joint farming ventures in the Kerio river
supporting environmental conservation and restoring the relationship between people and their environment
* creating safe spaces for communities to grieve, tell their stories and heal
* providing trauma support for people who have carried the burden of violence for many years
* supporting reformed youth warriors as they transition from conflict towards livelihoods, empowerment and peaceful community life
* strengthening local peace committees and early warning systems.

For the Kerio Valley, building peace means investing not only in dialogue and reconciliation but also in trauma healing, climate resilience, livelihoods, environmental restoration and the people who are already working every day to rebuild trust across community divides.

31/07/2026

What if the path to peace started with communities that have lived through conflict farming together?

In Kerio Valley Kenya, the Pokot and Marakwet communities are using shared farming as a foundation for rebuilding relationships. Beyond strengthening livelihoods, the initiative is creating opportunities for dialogue, restoring trust, and strengthening cooperation around shared natural resources.

Our latest blog explores what this experience can teach us about designing programmes that bring together peacebuilding, livelihoods, and resilience.

Read the full story to learn how integrated approaches to peacebuilding can deliver lasting outcomes:

After years of conflict, communities along the West Pokot and Elgeyo Marakwet border are using farming as a pathway to reconciliation and stability.

30/07/2026

International Alert Horn of Africa was pleased to join this courtesy visit with the National Police Service, represented by our Country Director, Emmy Auma. We welcomed the opportunity to engage on issues that matter to communities, including police accountability, public trust, and collaboration between state and non-state actors.

We look forward to deepening our partnership with the National Police Service and working alongside other stakeholders to support practical solutions that strengthen community safety, prevent violence, and build confidence between citizens and law enforcement.

21/07/2026

In peacebuilding, we learn something new every day.

🔆 One of the biggest lessons we have learned in our work is that water governance is essentially about relationships rather than 💦 water itself.

🚰Water is the resource around which communities negotiate power, identity, trust, cooperation, and survival. Where relationships are strong, communities often find ways to manage scarcity. Where relationships are weak, even abundant water can become a source of dispute.

🤝Lasting peace therefore depends on strengthening the institutions, norms, and relationships that enable communities to manage shared resources fairly and peacefully over time.

What is one overlooked lesson about water governance that you think deserves more attention?

09/07/2026

🌍 What changes do communities notice when they reflect on their own peacebuilding journey?

Through the Austrian Development Agency-funded “Addressing the Intersection of Climate, Conflict & Gender Equality in the Turkana-Omo Borderlands” project, we recently convened communities and local government leaders from the Nyangatom and Dassenech Woredas for a conflict analysis update and outcome harvesting workshop.

💡 Here are some of the changes communities identified:

👩🏾‍💼 Women are taking up leadership. Once excluded from decision-making spaces, women are now facilitating community peace dialogues and serving in local leadership positions. In several Dassenech kebeles, women now serve as kebele leaders commonly known as "likemenbers". The women peace champions are using their influence to discourage young people from participating in cattle raids, mediate disputes, and facilitate dialogue that strengthens peaceful relations between neighboring communities.

🤝 Cross-border relationships are changing. Communities spoke of growing trust, more cross-border trade, increasing inter-community marriages between the Nyangatom, Dassenech, and Turkana, and greater acceptance of shared grazing areas as a collective resource.

🌱 Communities are adapting to a changing climate. Communities are diversifying their livelihoods through fishing and maize farming, while climate information is being used alongside peacebuilding efforts to support fair sharing of water and pasture and reduce resource-related tensions.

These changes reflect the determination of communities to choose cooperation over conflict and violence. Every dialogue, shared resource, and act of reconciliation is gradually changing what peace looks like for communities living in the Turkana-Omo borderlands.

-Omoborderlands -bordercooperation

30/06/2026

We asked our project manager (Dorina Prech) and finance manager (Kevin Odada) what partnerships mean to them. Here is their take:

✅Strong partnerships place those most affected by conflict at the centre of building lasting peace.

✅Strong partnerships invest in people and institutions. Partnerships are more sustainable when partners have the skills, systems, and tools needed to manage project funds effectively and enhance accountability.

Without strong local partnerships and accountable systems, peacebuilding efforts are less likely to endure beyond project cycles.