Sustainability
Protecting the Commons
How can the theft of land and other collectively owned resources be stopped and how can the achievements of indigenous people to preserve biodiversity be recognized? These questions were the focus of an international conference on “Commons” in Kenya, which was jointly organized by the Universities of Bern and Nairobi in June 2023.
It was the first time in over 20 years that the conference of the organization founded by Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom to study the governance of the Commons was held again in Africa. More than 600 participants from all over the world debated between June 19 and 24 in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi at the XIX Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of The Commons (IASC). In the spirit of decolonization, the universities of Nairobi and Bern organized the conference together; in Bern, the Institute for Social Anthropology and the Center for Development and Environment (CDE) with the Kenyan partner organization CETRAD and the two vice rectorates for development and research were in charge. The Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) from Basel and the Swiss Society for African Studies (SSAS) were also involved.
The conference began with an opening ceremony and a networking event, at which the Vice Rectors of the University of Nairobi (Prof. Stephen Kiama Gitahi) and the University of Bern (Prof. Hugues Abriel and the future Rector Prof. Virginia Richter) pointed out the valuable cooperation between the two universities. Furthermore, the political number three of the current Kenyan government, the Prime Cabinet Secretary Hon. Wycliffe Musalia Mudavadi, and the Swiss Ambassador to Kenya, Valentin Zellweger, addressed greetings to the participants as well as representatives of Kenyan and Swiss commoners’ organizations.