The research reported in this dissertation identifies what happens to nomads when they lose their animals and what can be done by the community, government, and non-governmental organizations to enable the ex-nomads to attain livelihood self-sufficiency. It has addressed these concerns by answering the following three questions: What does sedentarization mean to the people who sedentarize and the organizations that assist them when they do? How are sedentary communities---and specifically their gender relations---affected by the changes in mobility that result from sedentarization? What can be done to ensure that sedentarizing and sedentary ex-nomadic communities attain self-sufficient and sustainable livelihoods?; The study was conducted in Mandera Central division in northeastern Kenya. Answering these questions enabled me to identify the policies informing the programs that assisted the ex-nomads. Establishing the policies' strengths and weaknesses and ways to improve them made it possible for me to come up with policy proposals that could lead to improving the well-being of these ex-nomads and the communities into which they assimilate.; Data used in this research was obtained by interviewing 123 (62 women and 61 men) community members and 39 employees from 34 (23 government and 11 non-governmental) organizations face-to-face, conducting focus group interviews with six groups constituting the 123 community members, observing community members in public places, obtaining information from key informants and secondary sources. Following are some key findings from this work: First, sedentarization means different things to different categories of stakeholders. Second, women's mobility became culturally more restricted than men's after sedentarization, with the consequence of severe denigration of women. Third, because institutions (home, community, market, and the state) in Mandera are gender insensitive, so are the organizations (government, non-governmental) that they produce, and their development interventions. The policy implications of these findings are then discussed, changes In existing policies proposed, and new policies proposed.; Key Words: Sedentarization, Somali, Gender, Mobility, Resources, Development, Mandera, Northeastern Kenya
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