Drivers, Institutional Arrangements and the Impact of Resource-based Conflicts on Communities Livelihood in the Tana Delta, Kenya

Drivers, institutional arrangements and their impacts of resource-based conflicts on communities livelihood is major concern in the current literature. The purpose of this paper is to (i). find out the drivers of resource-based conflicts in the Tana Delta (ii). examine the organisational arrangement and the extent to which they influence resource based conflicts in the Tana Delta and (iii). examine the effects of resource-based conflicts on the communities livelihood strategies in Tana Delta. Descriptive survey method where semi-structured questionnares were administered was used to collect data. Qualitative data was collected through interviews with key informants. Data collection was guided by the needs and conflict theories. Anaysis was done using a combination of discriptive and content analysis. A number of drivers to resource based conflicts were found in Tana delta namely scarcity of resources, political incitement, competition for resources, climate change, ethnic rivalry, human wildlife conflicts, institutional arrangements and gender related conflicts. Theresults also shows that there are well organized institutional arrangements for resource use conflict management. It was finally found that resource-based conflicts has impacts on the communities livelihood strategies. It is recommended that community conflict resources based drivers, institutional arrangements and resource-based conflicts are key in decreasing or increasing communities livelihood.