Summary
The good practice being promoted is on the importance of Community Involvement in all stages of project implementation when designing and implementing community water projects. Water and forage are key determinants of pastoral production system. Water scarcity is associated with livestock deaths, disease outbreaks and increased labour burden for women. For a long time, the Kawalash community in Isiolo County, Kenya have not had any permanent water source and relied on shallow wells dug in dry river bed of Kipsing seasonal river which is over 10 kilometres away from the village. To address the water challenge, the Regional Pastoral Livelihoods Resilience Project – Kenya(RPLRP-Kenya), supported the community by drilling and equipping a borehole for the community.
Presenter
Dr. Josphat M. Muema is a veterinarian with advanced level training in Applied Epidemiology. He is an epidemiologist at Washington State University – global health Kenya program and a PhD candidate at the Institute of Tropical and Infectious Diseases (UNITID), University of Nairobi focused on understanding impact of drought emergency livestock interventions on child nutrition among pastoral communities. His passion and interests are in disaster risk reduction, food and nutrition security, Livelihoods and community resilience in resource poor settings. Currently he is the County Project Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, Regional Pastoral Livelihoods Resilience Project (RPLRP), Isiolo County, Kenya.
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Water availability versus pasture. In-spite of the long distance of 20km walk in search of water in some cases pasture is available and in proper use during wet season. While during dry season animals move closer to permanent water sources.
Is there a situation where we are overdeveloping the watering points encouraging settlements in ecologically sensitive rangelands that have been in use and existence by pastoralists over the years.
Apart from reduced distances to the watering point, what are the other impacts observed on the rangelands around water point area and Kawalash in general? Can this success have a spill over effect to ecosystem restorations.