Details

In November 2016, KAS supported the West Pokot County, department of intergovernmental coordination, peace building and disaster management to improve on her draft county disaster management policy which was then a zero draft. The policy implementers, administrative and technical experts from outside and within the county were invited in this respect. With an improved version, a final multi-stakeholder/sectoral input from various departments and the non-state actors who missed out in the initial experts meeting was deemed important especially in tightening areas of coordination, administration, before subjecting the draft to the legislature for public participation and subsequent ratification.

Ratification by the assembly is key as the policy partly seeks to generate funds from public coffers and development partners to strengthen response capability of the county government in dealing with the usual disasters mainly, drought emergencies that is prone in the county. It’s important to note that the drought level has hit an alarm level expressly in the rangelands and pastoralist zones. Furthermore, even though long rain seasons that are expected in April of 2017, disasters such as flooding and land-slides will likely to be reported, a clear reason to set up a structured framework for long term development planning.

Furthermore, even with a refined DRM draft policy present; still, there is the need to link or streamline the same with ongoing county wide discussions on developing a new 2018-2023 West Pokot County Integrated Development Plan (CIDP) as well as how best to promote techniques to capture community participation in this process. Public participation is deemed a legal requisite; one that will give more local ownership. To this end, KAS held a two day seminar (on 8th and 9th of February 2017) at the Horizon Resort, Makutano whose objectives were to provide a multi-stakeholder/sectoral platform to engage on the DRM draft policy sensitization before being subjected to the legislature for ratification as an instrument for development planning; and 2) to discuss adoptable strategies for linking the draft DRM policy to 2018-2023 CIDP development process as well as public participation in respect to local communities.

The seminar was organized by Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) in partnership with the West Pokot department of intergovernmental coordination, peace building and disaster management and the Pokot rural development project organization. Different approaches were pursued including group works, presentations, testimonies and case studies. Thirty one (31) participants were engaged and who came from the county departments of agriculture, health, fisheries, education, livestock, planning and budget, food security, and disaster management. Included in the participant profile were members of the civil society organizations working within the realms of food security promotion –education, water, irrigation, agriculture, peacebuilding, and livestock in the pastoral and agro-pastoral zones. The National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) and the Agriculture Sector Support Programme offices in West Pokot were also engaged.