Sustainability and disengagement strategies : WASH interventions in vulnerable contexts : Kenya with a focus on working with pastoralist communities, chronic situations and drylands, gender and management models : fieldwork - 3 of 4 : research findings an

The ‘Sustainability and disengagement strategies; WASH in vulnerable contexts’ research is being undertaken by an external consultant with the contributions of a wide range of staff members from within the ACF international network (ACF-IN). It aims to learn from ACF-IN programmes as to current good practice and challenges and to learn from communities and other sector actors from around the world on good practice in relation to achieving sustainability in vulnerable contexts. The main outputs will be a manual and accompanying CD which will be produced near the end of 2007. Kenya is situated in East Africa neighbouring with Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia. 80% of Kenya’s land areas are arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs). Increasing frequency of droughts and clan conflicts and increases in populations living in the ecologically ASALs pose challenges to sustainability of WASH interventions. The seven provinces of Kenya which are lowest in the ranking in Human Development Index (HDI) and Gender Development Index (GDI) are all arid provinces in the northern part of the country. Adult literacy levels in Mandera District ‘are low at approximately 33% (48% male and 18% female), with a primary school enrolment rate of 30.8% for boys and 14% for girls’. The government of Kenya has developed a new policy for the ASALs, published in 20073, which has taken a view of the ASALs as being of importance to Kenya’s development and not, as previously seen, as an unproductive area and an area of ‘poverty and need’. It notes that the ASALs host over 75% of Kenya’s livestock, 90% of the wild animals important for Kenya’s tourist industry and also provides employment for three-million Kenyans. Another shift in the way that the GoK is looking at the ASALs in to acknowledge that traditional pastoralism is a suitable system of lifestyle and production for the ecologically sensitive ASALs, but whilst also still acknowledging the challenges to the provision of services. [authors abstract]