Sharp-sailed dhows still ply the sparkling waters off Kenya’s northeastern Lamu archipelago, home to an ancient Swahili settlement and a UNESCO World Heritage site. But terrorist attacks in recent years have crippled the idyllic beach community, along with much of Kenya’s coastal tourism sector.
Now the Kenyan government, in cooperation with a Chinese construction firm, has decided to transform Lamu into a massive seaport — potentially the largest in East Africa — complete with new resorts and a pipeline to channel oil from South Sudan through Kenya to the rest of the world.
But a number of groups have raised concerns that the port project — likely to increase the population in Lamu from about 100,000 today to over a million a decade from now — could incite further conflict in the historically marginalized part of Kenya, especially if not done with careful attention to current land claims and resource use patterns.
About the author
Michael Igoe@AlterIgoe
Michael Igoe is a Senior Reporter with Devex, based in Washington, D.C. He covers U.S. foreign aid, global health, climate change, and development finance. Prior to joining Devex, Michael researched water management and climate change adaptation in post-Soviet Central Asia, where he also wrote for EurasiaNet. Michael earned his bachelor's degree from Bowdoin College, where he majored in Russian, and his master’s degree from the University of Montana, where he studied international conservation and development.