Details

Understanding strategies for disaster management, drought and famine early warning and food and nutrition security for improved crisis prevention and county planning.

The KAS in collaboration with the Department of Intergovernmental Coordination, Peace-building and Disaster Management for West Pokot held a five days capacity training workshop on integrated food security programming and disaster risk reduction that targeted the Sub-County and Ward Administrators, 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.