Letea – September 11, 2024 (Public Communications and Media Relations)
The county directors and other technical staff joined partners in conducting a field monitoring visit to the Letea community and Kakuma Sub-county Hospital in Turkana West Sub-county.
The monitoring visit continued to build on the USAID Resilience Learning Activity’s support to Partnership, Resilience and Economic Growth (PREG) and Turkana County Government in co-creation, co-facilitation, and co-implementation of the county level joint work plans.
The Chair of the PREG and also Field Director of USAID Nawiri, Gabriel Ekuwom, remarked that the PREG team had identified Letea in Turkana West, Kerio and Kalokol in Turkana Central, Turkwel in Loima, Katilu in greater Turkana South, and Lake zone in Turkana North as field monitoring sites for layering and integration of development efforts.
Ekuwom said that Letea community was selected as a learning point as a result of its vulnerability, pathway for joint interventions and find gaps for support and in effort to accelerate progress. The visit targeted Letea Dispensary and Loritit Business Women Group supported by USAID Nawiri.
He said “the quarterly identified monitoring sites will provide an opportunity for a multi-sectoral platform for partners to review progress against the Joint Work Plan (JWP) and to share lessons, challenges, collaborations, and achievements; specifically looking into sequencing, layering and integration (SLI) activities identified in JWP in February 2023.”
The PREG Chair further added that the partners and county government would use the outputs from the field visit to share learnings, identify opportunities for improvement in their programming in the next quarter. This would be in line with the principles of the USAID Collaboration Learning and Adapting (CLA) approach.
The USAID Nawiri’s Field Director further explained that the six layering sites were identified after assessment was done in regards to humanitarian caseload, poverty, access to services and burden of malnutrition.
As a member of the PREG, the Deputy Director of Disaster Management Moses Nawoton said the reflective meetings were necessary as project priorities evolve.
“Field visits keep us a breast of the reality on the ground. By jointly monitoring projects, gives government and partners an opportunity to share lessons, areas of improvement, challenges, collaborations, and achievements utilising data for informed decision making process,” said Nawoton.
However, members raised concern over non-USAID Partners. They said unlike USAID implementing partners who enjoyed cordial coordination in the PREG platform, non-USAID partners were likely to approach development in their own approach.
The PREG partner representatives suggested that the County Government should lead in partner coordination through a policy. This policy would ensure that all partners have a reference document to avoid duplication of efforts and wastage.
The PREG members represented in the visit and reflection meeting were from the directorates of Disaster Management, Agriculture, Land Reclamation, Veterinary Services, Livestock Production, Water Services, Transport and Community Health Services.
The other PREG partners represented were USAID Nawiri, USAID Stawi, USAID RLA, USAID Imarisha Jamii, Caritas Lodwar and International Rescue Committee.
