Tailor projects to community needs, Nanok urges partners
Development partners implementing cross-border projects have been advised to tailor their programmes to meet the needs of communities.
Turkana Governor Josphat Nanok said on the first day of Kenya-Uganda cross-border consultative meeting to promote integrated development, including animal health and other resilience investments, in the Karamoja cluster.
He said priority areas for communities living along the border include the establishment of water infrastructure, which would contribute to the realisation of the objective to commercialise livestock keeping.
“Let’s read the priorities of the people correctly when implementing projects. If you want to address 60 per cent of problems facing the pastoralists, it is water. It used to be insecurity, which forms 30 per cent of the problem but the biggest is water (sic),” said Nanok.
“You solve this problem, then you’ll have solved the problem of the livestock industry, and can begin thinking how we can bring aspects of value addition,” he added.
The governor said technical teams have visited the site where the government plans to set up a dam in Namoniangikaala in Loima Sub-county, while West Pokot county had picked a site where Pokot and Turkana communities graze their livestock.
Resource sharing
During last month’s signing of the Kenya-Uganda memorandum of understanding for cross-border peace and development, President Uhuru Kenyatta said the government would set up three dams in Turkana, West Pokot and Marsabit to benefit pastoralists.
Nanok said part of efforts to implement the MoU includes strengthening cross-border trade with Uganda.
ASALs Principal Secretary Micah Powon said part of deliberations in the three days’ meeting would be on developing a mechanism for resource sharing along the border, infrastructure improvement, strengthening surveillance of livestock and human diseases, developing coordination mechanism and sharing of information.
The Ugandan delegation attending the meeting is led by Assistant Commissioner for Karamoja Affairs Francis Okori. - KNA
