Like many other African countries described in this volume, Kenya has recently enacted several new policies and public-sector reforms that affect its water sector. This chapter considers those reforms in the context of the country's particular history of land tenure and settlement, a history that continues to have a profound influence on contemporary patterns of land and water management as well as on gender relations in water. The chapter focuses on the particular case of a river basin in Western Kenya, the Nyando river basin (3517 km2), that has its outlet in Lake Victoria. Over the last century, the Nyando river basin has experienced a history that has shaped spatial patterns of land tenure, settlement and water management. The plural land management systems that exist in the basin today are the product of three distinct periods of historical change: (i) the pre-colonial era that was dominated by customary landholding and land rights systems; (ii) the colonial era in which large areas of land were alienated for specific users and the majority of the Kenyan population confined to native reserve areas; and (iii) the post-colonial era that has encouraged large-scale private ownership of land by men and a small public-sector ownership of irrigation land, all against the backdrop of customary norms and the colonial pattern of settlement and land use. Both colonial and post-colonial institutions have largely disregarded women's rights to land and water resources. Although customary norms are consistent in ensuring access to water for all members of particular ethnic groups, in practice access and management of water points vary across the basin depending upon the historically defined pattern of landownership and settlement. Customary norms that secure the rights of women to water resources tend to have most impact in former native reserve areas and least impact in ethnically heterogeneous resettlement areas held under leasehold tenure. Recommendations are made on how new policies, legislation and government institutions could be more effective in promoting the water needs of rural communities in Kenya.

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Three distinct pathways of irrigation development have been pursued in Kenya over the last 20 years: a topdown planning approach, a centralized service approach and an unregulated smallholder approach. All three pathways have simultaneously unfolded in the Nyando basin flood plain in Western Kenya. Data from a participatory analysis of poverty and livelihood dynamics from villages around the Nyando basin indicate that the incidence of poverty is higher in the flood plain than in the other parts of the basin. Within the flood plain, there are distinct patterns of poverty and livelihood dynamics in areas associated with different approaches to landownership and irrigation management. Over the last 10 years, poverty has risen rapidly to over 40% in the area following the top-down planning approach, increased slowly in smallholder mixed farming areas and remained relatively stable in areas supported by the centralized service agency. Recent changes in Kenya's water policy offer new opportunities for reforming and reviving the irrigation sector.

The coping strategies for dealing with negative racial stereotypes, among the Black women in this longitudinal case study analysis, shifted from opting to ‘prove others wrong’ or working harder to leaning on their social networks for camaraderie and advice.