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This strategy is meant to address the key issues holding back the ASALs, and provides a framework for action that will lead to sustainable development using the ASALs' broad natural resources base.

In Kenya, the ASALs occupy more than 80 percent of the country and are home to over 10 million people. Despite their high development potential, the ASALs have the lowest development indicators and highest poverty incidence amongst all areas in Kenya.

More than 60 percent of ASAL inhabitants, for instance, live in conditions of abject poverty subsisting on less than one US dollar per day. Reinforcing this endemic poverty is a cycle involving environmental degradation, insecurity, climatic shocks, diseases and general despondency.

In the midst of the high incidence of poverty in the ASALs lies an immense base of natural resources endowment: more than 70 percent of the national livestock population in Kenya is to be found in the ASALs; 90 percent of the wild game that supports much of the tourism sector in Kenya sits in the ASALs and much of Kenya?s potential and exploited commercial mineral wealth is in the ASALs.

Therefore, there is a growing recognition among various stakeholders and development experts that the ASALs have the potential to transform the economy of the whole country and thus hold the key to accelerated development of this country. There is a growing recognition among various stakeholders and development experts that the ASALs hold the key to accelerated development of this country.

The interest in the ASALs as the new frontier for the country's development is highlighted by the Government of Kenya's Economic Recovery Strategy for Wealth and Employment Creation, which spotlights the immense potential for wealth creation and employment in those areas.

The draft National Policy for the Sustainable Development of Arid and Semi-Arid Lands of Kenya (2004) sets out the overarching principles and broad actions required to transform the Kenyan ASALs into national wealth and employment creators. Download full report

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