Nairobi, Aug. 17 -- Kenya's arid and semi-arid lands cover some 489,000 square kilometres - more than 80 percent of the country's landmass, and home to about 36 percent of its people. It is the largest asset the republic owns, and almost none of it has a price, because almost none of it has a title.

Every investment pitch for the north eventually meets that same wall. A developer wants a wind farm, a mineral processor a plant, a carbon project a 30-year lease, and each needs the one thing the north cannot readily supply: a landowner with a title deed to sign. Without a clear owner, there is no collateral, and without collateral no bankable project.

The Constitution recognises community land as one of Kenya's three forms of tenure, equal...