The Context of Climate Change and Pastoralism-Challenges and Opportunities: Public Participation Policy Formulation, Implementation and Evaluation

Pastoralists are people who live mostly in dry, remote areas herding livestock. Their livelihoods depend on their intimate knowledge of the surrounding ecosystem and on the well-being of their livestock.

Pastoral systems take many forms and are adapted to particular natural, political and economic environments. The types of livestock kept by pastoralists vary according to climate, environment, water and other natural resources, and geographical area. Pastoralism is therefore an economic and social system well adapted to dryland conditions and characterized by a complex set of practices and knowledge that has permitted the maintenance of a sustainable equilibrium among pastures, livestock and people.

Pastoral communities are marginalized and generally not given due consideration in wider socio-political analysis.

Pastoral communities face threats such as;

• ·      Marginalization and generally not being given due consideration in wider socio-political analysis.
• ·       Livelihoods of these communities are vulnerable to climate change, shifting global markets, population growth and increased competition for land and other natural resources
• ·     Little knowledge on current governance reforms and provisions of the Constitution and legal frameworks such as public participation in their socio-political affairs.

 Public Participation

The Constitution of Kenya 2010 provides that power is the foundation of public participation: Article 1 “all sovereign power belongs to the people of Kenya ……….” Some ways of ensuring public participation for pastoral communities include:

·         Publicity- passing of information to pastoralists

·         Public Education- awareness among pastoralists

·         Public Input- solicit and collect ideas & opinions

·         Public Interaction- exchange views and concerns

·         Public Partnerships- pastoralists and government agreed decisions and follow ups.

Pastoralists input on development can be done in the following ways;

• ·         Participate actively and engage in decision making in utilization of natural resources.
• ·         Search for information to judge accuracy on government actions.
• ·         Participate in public/political discussions which affect them and their communities
• ·     Follow debates and voting influence of their MCAs, MPs, Senators that is important to pastoralists
• ·         Signing petitions on a desired government action or policy

·        Importance of public participation

• ·         Promotes transparency and accountability among leaders
• ·         Promotes local and community ownership
• ·         Facilitates consensus building in development projects
• ·         Enhances cooperation and trust between leaders and communities
• ·         Enhances awareness creation on development

Greater efforts are required to ensure the participation of pastoral people in all stages of project development; More attention needs to be paid to collecting and analyzing context-specific data in order to gain a better understanding of the socio-economic value of pastoralism;

Policymakers need to create an enabling institutional environment at national and county government levels that is sensitive to the specific needs and constraints of pastoralists and also provides them with space and authority for decision making.

Recommendations

1. Development planners should have a clear understanding of the national policy context, of supportive and unsupportive policies, and of the general attitude of government towards pastoralism.
2. More attention should be devoted to indigenous environmental knowledge, which emphasizes the preservation of species and habitats, thus contributing to biodiversity and making pastoralism essential for the ecosystem health of dryland environments.
3. To reverse rangeland degradation, customary and local institutions need to be strengthened so that they can make better use of traditional knowledge and ensure that pastoralism continues to be practiced and managed effectively and autonomously, without external pressures.

By: Joshua Kipsang Changwony

Deputy Executive Secretary/Programs Coordinator

Constitution and Reform Education Consortium (CRECO)

changwony@crecokenya.org

THERE IS MORE TO MENSTRUATION THAN A SANITARY PAD

Image: The Economic Times

With menstruation on the limelight in Kenya today, there have been campaigns left right and centre to donate and collect sanitary towels to keep girls in class, with even the government coming in and providing free sanitary towels to schools, but is this enough? Truth is that most of the girls like most of the Kenyans out there are not aware that there is more to menstruation than the monthly period. Menstruation is a natural biological process, which occurs in girls from ages 9-19 and varies from girl to girl yet menstruation is regarded as a silent, shameful, embarrassing or even a taboo topic in most of our cultures. The result is women and girls have over the year’s hidden and concealed menstruation, yet it is one of the issues that needs to be prioritized to achieve gender equality and inclusion.

Many girls are not able to manage their periods in a safe and dignified manner. Lack of sanitation facilities in school is one of the causes of menstruation related absenteeism; the girls opt to stay at home to avoid compromising their integrity. When they soil their dresses in school, the ridicule and embarrassment from their colleagues forces them to stay at home during this period. Menstrual cramps are also an issue as the girls do not know how to handle them, and because menstruation is regarded as a “private” topic the girls suffer in silence.  There are no safety measures for disposal of used sanitary towels in most schools and homesteads. You find that most schools don’t have menstrual bins for collecting pads and mostly not considered a priority, so the girls end up disposing them in the latrine or hiding them on shelves or cracks in the bathroom.

 Inadequate of complete lack of water mostly affects the girls, meaning that they cannot maintain good menstrual hygiene. Unhygienic practices expose the girls to reproductive tract infections that the girls cannot report lest they are accused of engaging in sex yet If not treated early; it could lead to various health issues and consequently affect their valuable lives.  Girls should therefore be made aware of the process of menstruation and importance of maintaining their hygiene before attaining menarche. They should also be made aware about its linkages with their forthcoming reproductive health.  Menstrual hygiene management education will also help demystify the myths and taboos on menstruation. On the other hand, the society should break the silence on menstruation and discuss these issues and come up with practical solutions so as to leave no one behind.     

                                                                                                                                     

By Jedidah Lemaron

Jedidah Lemaron is the Founder and Executive Director of the Malkia Initiative, which works to promote and enhance quality education for girls. Our main focus is on Mentorship, Menstrual Hygiene Management and re-admission of teenage mothers to school, she is passionate about Education, Youth,  Girls, and Women. As a Maasai girl she works to change the lives of the community by exploring ways to engage  the diverse group of actors including the Maasai elders, community gate keepers, role models, youth and women into finding even better solutions to close the evident gaps. She has worked on campaigns such as ‘Girls not brides’, and ‘Do not exchange girls with cows’ and ‘End FGM Now,’ among others. 

Existing Opportunities For Youth In Kajiado County

As per the Kenyan Government a Youth is defined as a, young person between the ages of 18 years and 35 years.

The County Government of Kajiado in partnership with the ministry of Youths has been able to set up opportunities for the youths within the County. The Kajiado County Government is in the process of registering and pre-qualifying youth-owned enterprises so that they can access County Government tenders and contracts. Government tenders amount to millions each year; it is a great opening for the youth of Kajiado County. The tenders are well published and advertised on the County press as well as the public notice boards for the general public.

The development objective of the Youth Employment and Opportunities Project for Kajiado County Government is to increase employment and earnings opportunities for targeted youths. The project comprises of four components. The first component; improving youth employability, addresses the skills mismatch of youth by engaging training providers such as CRECO (Constitution and Reform Education Consortium) and private sector employers to know the rights for the youths and to offer training and work experience to targeted youth. This component will contain two sub-components: i) Provision of training and work experience in the formal sector and ii) Provision of training and work experience in the informal sector.

Youth in Kajiado County being taken through  a session on 'Using internet tools for wealth generation."

The second component, support for job creation responds to the need for job creation with initiatives to help launch new businesses, improve the productivity and job creation potential of existing micro enterprises and among self-employed youth, and support innovative approaches to improve job and incoming earning opportunities among the hard-to-serve youth. This component is structured into two subcomponents, jointly implemented by the Ministry of Public Service, Youth and Gender Affairs. i) Support for the self-employed and ii) Catalytic interventions for job creation; The third component, improving labor market information plans to improve access to and the quality of labor market information to help public and private actors make decisions and formulate policies; The fourth component, strengthening youth policy development and project management will support capacity building for the Directorate of Youth Affairs and the management and coordination of the overall Project. It includes three subcomponents: (a) building youth employment policy development and coordination capabilities; (b) Monitor and evaluation of youth employment policies and funds; and (c) project management and coordination.

Image, courtesy

By Ruth Kinuthia, Kajiado County 

Ruth Kinuthia is an entrepreneur with a passion for software development to tackle big social problems. She holds a bachelor's degree in Computer science from Kenyatta University, Kenya. Ruth has over three years of experience in community development, and volunteer work. She has worked with organizations such as , Youth Alive Kenya ,Constitution and Reform Education Consortium (CRECO), and Youth Agenda to develop scale-able solutions to challenges that directly affect the youth, women and people with disabilities. She is an active member of Youth Alive Kenya ; and she is one of three students picked from Kenya to undergo Right to Participate exchange program in Norway between 7th January 2018 to 17th March 2018.  Upon completion of Right to Participate exchange program in Norway, Ruth wishes to work towards the full launch of her mission, which has a focus on community work and development.

THE ROAD TO EMPOWERMENT FOR MAASAI WOMEN

I was having a chat with a Maasai woman over Lunch today. She has no education whatsoever and I was curious to know why she chose the path that she is on. Ann (not her real name) was circumcised at a very young age, her father only saw girls as wealth and nothing else. He did not take Ann or any of her other sisters to school.  When she was first taken to her husband, she was so innocent and naïve that she thought it was a normal visit to the neighbours. Little did she know that was to be her home. She was married off as the fourth wife to an old man. He was so old that some of his children were almost her age.  She is silent for some seconds as if in a deep thought. She then laughs and tells me, “I was so young, that when my husband came home and the rest of the children ran to meet and greet him, I always found myself wanting to run too. I was still a child; I didn’t understand what was going on.  I cried many times and would ask them to take me back home. When I finally did understand, I feared him so much.


”One day I was making Ugali with him in the room and I completely forgot. I was so fearful because it had stayed on the fire for so long. He told me that it was already cooked and I should serve. The whole room burst into laughter. The scenario seems funny but I can imagine the agony she underwent. The time was just right for me to ask her a burning question, “How old were you Ann?” “What do I know about age?” she asks me.  I try to push her into giving me a rough figure but she cannot. She just doesn’t know her age to date and is very genuine. She then goes on to say that she doesn’t even like to think of any other girl going through the same experience. It was unbearable at first until it became normal, but an abnormal normal. Ann is an anti-FGM advocate in Namanga division, Kajiado County.Maasai girls were not valued because they were seen as members of the family who are not permanent as they will move households and clans once they get married. In the Maasai community a girl is worth 4 to 5 cows and several sheep and goats. This simply means that girls are mostly seen as conduits to bringing bride wealth to their families. FGM and early forced marriages were common in rural areas. Education was delayed, that is if you were lucky to even go to school.  Most men were unwilling to wait years to see a return from their education investment in a girl yet she could bring returns through dowry. Only 20% of girls were admitted to school, few finished primary school and even less transitioned to secondary school and universities. Most of the girls stayed at home and helped their parents with house chores and looking after the animals as they wait for the girl to become of age, at least what they assumed was good age for marriage.

Today, there is a great improvement in the community. The enrollment of Maasai girls to school stands at 48%, this came after the introduction of free primary education in 2003. The enactment of the anti-FGM act to law has seen a decline in FGM. The community has since resolved to an alternative rite of passage, where girls are taken through a comprehensive course of life-skills and community values and later graduate to mark the initiation to womanhood. At the graduation, the community elders bless the girls to go prosper in their education unlike in the past where they would be blessed to have many children. Women empowerment in the villages is also on the rise with education penetrating to the roots of the community and it seeing its fruits. The men has allowed women to engage in different economic activities of their choice. They have formed welfare groups where they raise money and upscale their businesses hence providing for the families and can even take their children to schools. Investing in girls is a must in a community where a woman does not have a voice or a place.





By Jedidah Lemaron, Kajiado County






Jedidah Lemaron is the Founder and Executive Director of the Malkia Initiative, which works to promote and enhance quality education for girls. Our main focus is on Mentorship, Menstrual Hygiene Management and re-admission of teenage mothers to school, she is passionate about Education, Youth,  Girls, and Women. As a Maasai girl she works to change the lives of the community by exploring ways to engage  the diverse group of actors including the Maasai elders, community gate keepers, role models, youth and women into finding even better solutions to close the evident gaps. She has worked on campaigns such as ‘Girls not brides’, and ‘Do not exchange girls with cows’ and ‘End FGM Now,’ among others.