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VOICES FOR WETLANDS AND WATER: CASE STUDIES ON WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & WASH IN KENYA
Leveraging Resources for Catchment Management
An organisational capacity assessment and training by Watershed exposed the Summit members to resource mobilisation. The national and county stakeholders were identified - some were part of the training - and their offices visited to seek support for project activities. Part of these initiatives have borne fruit. Based on their SCMP, Nalepo WRUA, for instance, successfully secured EUR 85,000 from Water Resources Authority (WRA) in 2019 to undertake activities aimed at reducing surface run-off, water pollution and recharging groundwater for sustainable sanitation and hygiene services. WRUA officials, however, still require basic training on proposal writing to enable them to exploit more funding opportunities. Watershed also helped the Summit to establish links with the County Government. The officials were trained on the four stages of budgeting – formulation of budget items, approval of budget items and amounts, and execution and evaluation. Once equipped, the officials put their lobbying skills into action, negotiating an increase in budget allocation for water governance between 2018 and 2020. “Because WRUAs are not recognised within the County’s legal framework, we now lobby county officials to ensure that our views are considered when water projects are planned or executed.
Emmanuel Memusi - Chairman, Kajiado County WRUA Summit
The Kajiado County WRUA Summit is one of the most innovative outputs of the Watershed Programme. With representatives drawn from each of the 17 WRUAs in the County, the Summit, formed in 2018, is a strong lobbying and advocacy platform. It also provides water managers and community leaders a holistic view of the entire county water ecosystem for better management and distribution of the resource. Kajiado WRUAs grapple with many challenges related to funding and capacity. Out of 17, only five have received support from WRA. Most SCMPs need review, and a majority of the WRUAs are yet to implement planned activities due to financial challenges. This reinforces the need to explore and cultivate support from other stakeholders in the water sector.
How do our voices reach the big person? How do we bring grassroots people and key decision makers under one platform? - Emmanuel Memusi
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