KAS Kenya

Understanding the rationale behind the training

Drought (which is environmentally triggered) and resource based conflicts (which is as a result of biological epidemics and human made) are common disasters that occur frequently in West Pokot and Baringo Counties. Recent pockets of drought in 2013 in West Pokot and flooding in 2015 and recently in May 2016 in Baringo have illustrated the increasing food vulnerability faced by residents and majority of the indigenous communities. Drought preparedness planning is one of the adaptability measures applied in many ASAL areas to reduce the risks of community conflict over water, land, pasture and livestock which more often than not, amplifies the problems associated with food insecurity including malnutrition. In West Pokot and Baringo, there are areas like Lelan, Kapenguria, Tenges, Sacho, Eldama Ravine, Sirwa and Mumbere that receive rainfall enough to enable mixed farming while there are other places like Alale, Kiwawa, Konyao, Sigor, Kacheliba (for West Pokot), and Kollowa, Nginyang and Mukutani (for Baringo) that receive minimal rainfall or no rainfall at all to support settlement farming.

This means that only agro-pastoralism and pastoralism can be practiced in these areas. Of course, this is not such a bad idea, but integrated food security plans at the ward level –which is a function of governance- should be designed effectively and capacity of respective public officers strengthened on the following basic yet inter-related components: food and nutrition securities, disaster/drought and famine early warning systems, disaster risk assessments –to provide quick informed status, but also coordinated response on common types of disaster occurrences including flooding and land-slides, pest and disease control, drought management, and livestock deaths/stress levels among others. Furthermore, if the interventions by government and other stakeholders are to be more sustainable, it’s important to also rope in the voices of the indigenous communities through the National Drought Management Authority’s designed process of developing the Community Managed Disaster Risk Reduction (CMDRR) plans. This approach in terms of capacity training will likely to have better governance impact as it takes advantage of the set administrative structure of the county that are central in county budget formation and policy implementation.

The conceptual understanding and practical implementation of an integrated food security programming in the two counties of focus appears to be extremely low among the county-ward administrators. With the absence of such capacities among the sub-county and ward administrators, development and uptake of community managed disaster/drought risk reduction will continue to present an enormous challenge. Additionally, conflicts involving pastoralists in Northern West Pokot and Baringo Counties especially those triggered by, cattle rustling, proliferation of small arms and socio-economic marginalization will continue to manifest if the capacity to properly plan and manage the various sources of vulnerabilities especially the effects of drought and climate change are not addressed appropriately.

The theory of “resource scarcity” dominates the debate on “eco-violence” in pastoral and agro-pastoral areas, where conflicts among communities have traditionally been linked to competition over scarce resources and invariably drought because of its role in resource depletion. However, the impression that climate change and resultant resource scarcity directly prompt violent conflict has been challenged by the notion that resource based conflict and emergency relief actually occurs due to failure to deploy and integrate appropriately, instruments of effective governance in the delivery of public service and goods.

This situation is reflective both in West Pokot and Baringo Counties, a factor that is explained by existing weak capacities of the key structures of policy implementation (sub-county and ward administrators) to understand the concept of drought and famine early warning, the overarching policy intention of the 2011 Kenya National Food and Nutrition Security Policy, the 2009 Draft National Policy for Disaster Management as well as the respective county level legislations and policy frameworks which are key in informing and guiding specific county sector planning towards harnessing food and nutrition security and combating the chronic poverty and socio-economic vulnerability in the long run. Nonetheless, it’s important to understand that the lack of capacity on this front is perhaps due to the decentralized structures of public administration and the sectoral-oriented host institutions (Department of Intergovernmental Coordination, Peace-building and Disaster Management for West Pokot and Office of the Deputy Governor of Baringo) being newly created entities amid the ongoing attempts to also consolidate political goodwill.

Implementation of the various annual ward development plans, county legislations (like the West Pokot County Disaster Management Bill, 2016) and subsequent engagement with communities through the CMDRR plans ought to ensure inclusion of components that will improve on food security; borrowing where appropriate from national policies, concepts, positivist norms and strategies collected from project implementation across the world. This may seem like a web, quite complicated, but in real sense, it is simple and easier to implement as long as the capacity is strengthen accordingly.

It is on this backdrop that the KAS, Kenya office has partnered with the two County Governments of West Pokot and Baringo to carry out a five (5) days intensive training in each of County. The main objective is to build the capacity of sub-county and ward administrators on integrated approaches to implementing crisis prevention and county planning, key in addressing food shortages. The first training of West Pokot Sub-County and Ward administrators was conducted on the 1st to 5th of August 2016. Below is a snapshot.

West Pokot County Capacity building workshop on integrated-food-security programming.

The training workshop for West Pokot Sub-County and Ward Administrators was held for a period of five days, starting on the 1st of August to 5th of August 2016 at Horizon Resort in Kapenguria. An average of 43 participants were engaged in the training with the number of women being between 5 and 6, while that of men being between 27 and 29. The participants included in particular the 4 Sub-County administrators (from Kapenguria, Sigor, Kacheliba and Pokot South), ward administrators and representatives from the 20 wards, key public officials from the newly created County Department of Inter-Governmental Coordination and Disaster management), officials from the County Directorate of Agriculture and Livestock, the National government institutions represented by the NDMA and Provincial Administration, and other key stakeholders like the Livestock Marketing Council. The training was done by three trainers which extensive knowledge in the areas of public policy process, disaster risk management and food security. Two representatives from NDMA were also present and provided the needed technical backstopping and support especially on matters, drought management and CMDRR.

The five days of training unfolded into two parts. The first 3 days (which formed the first part) was geared towards conducting a series of training using lectures, power-point presentations and e-cases on the concepts of disaster management, drought and famine early warning –including the types of drought, how they manifest, the coping strategies, and last but not least, food and nutrition security. Moreover, policy and legislative frameworks like the West Pokot County Draft Disaster Management Policy and Disaster Management Bill, 2016 that underpin the operationalization of these concepts were also presented and their implementation process analyzed using two key strategies which included the cost-benefit and value for money analyses. These three days consecutively cultivated an optimal environment for the second part of the training to unfold, of which took two more days. The second part of the training was basically sequenced on sessions that helped to revisit the ward development plans (both strategic plans for the case example of Masol, Tapach, Loumt and Batei wards and annual development plans for the case of the other wards like Mnagei, Suam, Alale Kapenguria, Sigor and Riwo) as well as the West Pokot County Integrated Development Plan; discussing on different approaches of integrating disaster and drought risk reduction, early warning and nutrition strategies imperative in promoting long term solutions to food insecurity. Interestingly, having realized that the Disaster Management Policy was still in a draft format, the participants also proceeded to give their inputs in view in effort to stream line and validate the draft.

Worth noting, been in office for just over a year, the Ward and Sub-County administrators in West Pokot County admitted having being faced with limited capacity in terms of appropriately developing their annual plans in cognizance of aspects such as CMDRR plans, and sector oriented-community participation venues that are biased towards promoting access to dignified food and nutrition. In addition, key policy instruments such as the County Fiscal Strategy Paper and the County Approved Budget allocations were also discussed upon request from the participants who were keen to find out whether the County Government was able to factor in resources to address the unique challenges of drought, education, and agro-pastoral livelihoods in view of building resilience and helping to redistribute resources key in fighting inequalities, hunger and malnutrition.

To help the participants understand the above relationships and put into practice some of the newly acquired knowledge in the same regard, group works were initiated by the trainers. Group works involved among others, the participants identifying the uniqueness of their problems; those relating to food access in their individual wards, ongoing interventions by different actors, the mechanisms they have in place to engage with communities to plan for home grown solutions to the said problems, the resources allocation vis-à-vis the resources they get from the County Treasury and partners, existing alternatives to close the gaps et cetera. It is based on the presentations that various ward annual development plans were revisited and a number of areas identified for review. To this end, KAS together with NDMA and the West Pokot County Government- Department of Inter of Inter-governmental coordination and Disaster management will be monitoring the review and implementation process of the 4 sub-county and 20 ward development plans for 2016/17 financial year on key aspects that help to integrate and strengthen food security programming.