Lodwar, 20 November 2024 (Public Communications and Media Relations)
The Turkana County Government, in collaboration with USAID through the Partnership for Resilience and Economic Growth (PREG) collaborative platform, has initiated a three-day Joint Work Planning (JWP) forum to outline a collaborative approach for 2024-2025.
The JWP process aims to foster co-creation, co-planning, co-financing, and co-implementation between USAID implementing partners and the county government. Key objectives include developing a joint calendar of activities, reviewing past progress and challenges, identifying opportunities to eliminate duplication, and prioritizing key areas for the next fiscal year.
“For a very long time, planning has been left to individual departments and partners, now with the introductions of JWP, there will be reduced duplication, wastage, and competition in programs,” said Michael Aupe, Deputy Director of Resource Mobilization, Partnership, and Donor Coordination.
Over the three-day forum, county directors and USAID implementing partners discussed a calendar of activities, performance indicators, and budgets across the 10 PREG working sectors.
“The JWP process will provide the county government with an opportunity to easily coordinate multi-sectoral discussions aimed at strengthening collaborative frameworks towards localization, leveraging with other partners, assessing past progress through quarterly reflections and jointly examining data and evidence,” said Alfred Lotome, PREG Coordination Manager for Turkana and Samburu Counties.
Evans Onyiego, USAID RLA Partnership and Coordination Lead, emphasized the importance of proactive participation in the JWP process for its sustainability. He highlighted that the process is ongoing in other counties and that USAID RLA will support county governments in strengthening coordination through joint activities.
“Our role is to help counties strengthen coordination through joint activities. During the quarterly meetings, we will hold each of us accountable in order to track progress. We have now handed over this process to the Resource Mobilization Directorate, and we are available to support” said Evans Onyiego.
The forum brought together over 30 directors from various county departments and USAID implementing partners, including SAPCONE, USAID NAWIRI, USAID STAWI, USAID Imarisha Jamii, UNRCO, Kenya Red Cross Society, TUPADO, ADRA Kenya, IRC, HPRD, Save The Children, and the Diocese of Lodwar.
