Kenya Land Alliance (KLA)

20/10/2026

On this , we honour every community member and land rights defender who has stood firm in the face of dispossession, corruption and injustice.

The struggle for land is inseparable from the struggle for freedom that our heroes began. True heroism lives in every community that refuses to give up its land.

19/10/2026

KLA CEO Faith Alubbe is participating in the Resource Justice Network Africa Conference 2026, convening civil society leaders, policymakers and advocates from 31 African countries under the theme The Power Within: Strengthening Our Collective Action for a Just Transition.

The conference brings together coalitions working on , transition minerals, fossil fuel governance, civic space and community land rights to align strategies and build collective power across the continent.

Our work sits at the intersection of land, natural resources and community rights, this convening is both timely and necessary.

16/10/2026

In January 2024, the Nakuru County Government forcibly took over the Nakuru War Memorial Hospital, a private healthcare facility that had served patients for generations, deployed security officers on its premises, erased its signage and effectively shut it down, all while disputing the validity of a 50-year lease renewal that the hospital had secured over its 25-acre Milimani estate property.

The hospital remained closed for nearly two years as the legal battle over ownership played out in court, disrupting healthcare services for thousands of Nakuru residents who depended on the facility.

The Environment and Land Court has now ruled that the Nakuru War Memorial Hospital is the rightful owner of the disputed parcel and has ordered the County Government to vacate the land and withdraw its security officers from the premises immediately.

Section 26 of the Land Registration Act provides that a certificate of title is prima facie evidence of ownership and a county government’s disagreement with how a title was processed does not grant it the authority to unilaterally occupy or take over a privately held facility. That is dressed in the language of governance.

We affirm this ruling as a necessary correction and a reminder that must be defended through due process and the courts, never through the deployment of force.

The hospital has remained largely non-operational since the County Government of Nakuru took over its operations in 2024.

15/10/2026

Since her husband died, a brother of the deceased has repeatedly threatened her over the land. He has brandished a panga (machete) and told her he would cut her into pieces if she did not leave, and in the meantime he has gone ahead and used the land for his own purposes. She feared that reporting him would change nothing, which is a fear that keeps many women silent when the person threatening them is well connected.

Threatening someone with a weapon is a criminal matter, and the Police service has a duty to protect life and property. Land left behind by a husband forms part of his estate, to be handled through the succession process, and no relative can lawfully take it over through force or fear, which is why we keep saying that cannot be separated from a woman’s right to live without threat.

We brought the matter to the attention of the area police OCS, who stepped in to assist her, and we will keep walking with her as she secures what is lawfully hers.

Brot für die Welt | Ford Foundation | Misereor | Oxfam | Huairou Commission | Global Land Tool Network | Open Society Foundations |

14/10/2026

After her husband died, she planted approximately 400 coconut trees in their matrimonial land to earn a living and care for her family. Their firstborn was still in primary school when his father passed, and she did everything she could to see him through his education.

Today, she tells us, that same son is the one troubling her, and he has cut down the coconut trees and is now actively chasing her away.

The law is on her side. Where a man dies without a will, Section 35 of the Law of Succession Act gives the surviving spouse a life interest in the estate, so a child’s claim to the land does not allow him to push his mother off it while she is alive.

Cutting down trees she planted and depends on for her livelihood can also amount to malicious damage to property under the Penal Code. Article 40 protects the right to own property, and Article 60(1)(f) commits the State to eliminating gender discrimination in matters of land, which is why we keep saying that do not end when a husband dies and cannot be cut down by a relative.



Brot für die Welt | Ford Foundation | Misereor | Oxfam | Huairou Commission | Global Land Tool Network | Open Society Foundations |

14/10/2026

Kenya Land Alliance is ready to work with communities that submit their land cases appropriately and work within the threshold that the land national commission has set

13/10/2026

She tells us plainly that her children, especially her sons, want her gone so that they can take over the land now that her husband has died.

Few things are harder for a widow to say aloud, because the pressure is coming from inside her own family, which is often the reason so many women stay silent until it is too late.

Pressure to leave one’s own home can also amount to harassment and intimidation, which the Protection Against Domestic Violence Act 2015 recognises, so no widow has to simply endure it.

Conversations within families can be resolved, through (AJS) elders or mediation before anyone is hurt, yet the law remains the safety net for the woman at the centre.

We reported the matter to the nearest police station and she got help.

12/10/2026

They wanted to burn her alive inside her own home. The accusation was witchcraft, a charge with no truth to it, and the real reason, she tells us, was the property her late husband had left behind for her.

is already a season of grief, yet for many women it becomes a season of danger the moment relatives decide that is worth more to them than her safety, and a baseless accusation of witchcraft has become one of the cruellest ways of driving a woman off her land.

Kenya’s law leaves no room for this. Article 26 protects the right to life, Article 29 guarantees freedom from violence, Article 40 protects the right to own property, and Article 60(1)(f) commits the State to eliminating gender discrimination in matters of land, while threats to kill and acts of arson are criminal offences under the Penal Code.

No family has the right to threaten a widow in order to take what her husband left for her, which is why we say plainly that cannot be separated from a woman’s right to live free from violence.

She is now being supported by the Kenya Land Alliance (KLA) to obtain a title and the original area map, so that the boundaries of her land are clearly known and cannot be quietly shifted or argued away.

are best defended before a family is forced to choose between its safety and its land.

Brot für die Welt | Ford Foundation | Misereor | Oxfam | Huairou Commission | Global Land Tool Network | Open Society Foundations |

10/10/2026

Happy 2026. This year’s theme, Our Environment, Our Responsibility: Collective Action for Tree Growing and Environmental Stewardship, speaks directly to the work Kenya Land Alliance (KLA) does every day. Secure land is the foundation of a healthy environment because, when communities own and govern their land, they protect it.

09/10/2026

holds some of the richest untapped mineral deposits on earth,including a site confirmed by a 2022 geological survey to contain 5.8 million tonnes of niobium and 48.7 million tonnes of rare earth elements including yttrium, thorium, strontium and lanthanum, with the deposit’s total estimated value placed at Ksh8.1 trillion, making it one of the most consequential pieces of ground in Africa today.

In March 2026, Kenya’s Ministry of Mining issued a formal tender through a gazette notice inviting global companies including US and Chinese backed consortia to bid for the right to mine it, triggering an international scramble that has placed the communities living on and around Mrima Hill at the very centre of a geopolitical contest.

We were recently on the ground in Mrima, , meeting with environmental rights defenders who are doing some of the most important and some of the most dangerous work in the country right now.

There are times when we start working on community projects and we are not sure about going back home safely. That sentence represents the precarious environment that advocates in Kwale County work in every day.

Mrima Hill is not simply a mineral rich site but also a sacred forest for the and an ecological and biodiversity hotspot sustaining the communities living within and around it.

The defenders we met cited victimisation as among the most pressing challenges they face, alongside the broader pattern of communities being sidelined from decisions about resources that sit beneath their feet and that have sustained their livelihoods for generations.

Article 69(1)(d) obligates the state to encourage public participation in the management, protection and conservation of the environment, while Article 40 guarantees every person the right to acquire and own property.

Section 149 of the Mining Act further requires that communities be informed and consulted before any mining licence is granted over land they occupy or use. These provisions exist precisely for moments like this one, and affirms without reservation that the economic promise of Mrima Hill cannot and must not be realised at the cost of the community’s land rights.

To the environmental rights defenders of : your courage is seen, your work matters and stands with you.



Brot für die Welt | Ford Foundation | Misereor | Oxfam | Huairou Commission | Global Land Tool Network | Open Society Foundations |