Wangari Maathai Institute for Peace and Environmental Studies

Kenya is riddled with conflict associated with instability, as evident inthe widespread violence after the national elections 2007. Much of the violence took place in rural areas, where conflict and competing claims over natural resources appear closely entangled. The underlying drivers of conflict and violence remain contested and poorly understood. Solving or mediating these may comprise an important contribution to the building of a more stable Kenya empowered to support development for and bring prosperity to its populace.

In search of stability and prosperity, the government of Kenya in 2005enacted a new Forest Act aimed at improving natural resources management by decentralizing responsibilities and rights of forest management to civil society bodies, called Community Forestry Associations (CFA). Such reforms can be seen as an exercise of State building through adherence to democratic principles, whereby State-led governance becomes inclusive in the sense that it recognizes civil society based governance. In practice, however, top-down State-led governance reforms often ignore or disrupt pre-existing civil society based governance processes, which leads to further conflict and destabilization.

This project seeks to further our understanding of how to build inclusive governance that furthers stability and prosperity by investigating the drivers of forest related conflicts in the Mau Forest Complex, and the role of the Forest Act 2005 in changing patterns of conflict.

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Four (4) PhD Scholarships Available – Call for Applications

The Wangari Maathai Institute for Peace and Environmental Studies (WMI) of the University of Nairobi (UoN) in collaboration with the University of Copenhagen, Denmark hereby invites interested and qualified citizens from Kenya (holding Masters degree or equivalent) to submit applications for 4 PhD scholarships related to the STAKE-project. Registration is at the University of Nairobi.

The 4 PhD scholarships under the STAKE project are financed by a DANIDA research grant. The scholarships are of three years duration, and will start from July 2012. The PhD scholars will undertake training at PhD level at the University of Nairobi as well as at the University of Copenhagen. The PhD study and research will be closely integrated and coordinated with all the other activities in the STAKE-project.

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