Communities of Karamoja in north-eastern Uganda and Turkana in north-western Kenya live with continuous insecurity, including large-scale and frequent cattle raiding, armed robbery, rape, and human rights abuses. Efforts by communities, governments, and civil society organisations over decades have repeatedly failed to bring protection and justice to the people of these borderlands.

This section summarises priority areas to improve peace and security for pastoralists in borderlands, working in partnership with other communities and with local and international partners. XCEPT evidence shows how lack of meaningful agency in politics and governance is an overarching root cause of insecurity for pastoralists, and that increasing their political agency is key to better security.

The 2020 African Union Strategy for Better Integrated Border Governance summarises peace and security challenges relating to African borders as follows: 

In Africa, state borders are often not identical to peoples’ borders and hence have been known to foster three kinds of tensions: between neighbouring states, between states and their people and between states and violent actors, including international criminal cartels and terrorist groups.