Building capacity for food and water security policy Kitui and Wajir counties of Kenya

Road water harvesting in Kitui county, which could be scaled up with appropriate policy interventions

I will be addressing the challenge of policy uptake within food and water security, focusing on Kitui and Wajir counties of Kenya. In the Kenyan context there are a number of policies addressing food and water security in the drylands. In the context of the current devolved system of governance, county governments are now required to develop their own food and water security policies. This process has been slow. Some of the challenges have included policies not being implemented and others not based on scientific evidence. Moreover, a number of policies have been developed by external consultants who provide expertise and draft policies without creating institutional memory within the local organizations. This project seeks to address this by investigating the capacity gaps county level policy makers face and developing interventions to address them. This will be done through engagement with policy makers at both county and national level.

Team

Fiona Ngarachu – Kenyatta University

Daniel Naburi – Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology

Claire Bedelian -International Institute for Environment and Development

Tendai Chibarabanda – Waternet

Kate Vincent  – Kulima

Chris Shisanya – Kenyatta University