Stakeholders involving the County Department of Water Services and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) have called for enhanced coordination of efforts between the different sectors, to enable them reach more residents with clean and safe water.
The resolutions were arrived at, after a meeting to deliberate on sustainable water management involving diverse sector actors.
Water services County Executive (CEC), Vincent Palor, said the fundamental concern at the moment is how best partners can channel their efforts to bridge the water access gap by using the recently developed County GIS borehole mapping report.
Palor said this would help to identify high yielding boreholes for further upgrading.
The Water Executive noted that the county had already set the coordination agenda rolling by delivering a robust Turkana County Water Act of 2019 to serve the purpose.
The CEC lauded UNEP for taking the joint gaps identification approach by convening various sector players drawn from both state and non-state actors not only in the water sector but also Health, Environment, Agriculture, Lands and Education.
While expressing support for the need for better coordination and full compliance to the Water Act, Water services Chief Officer Moses Natome said that the workshop had also set the ball rolling for policy dialogue on capacity assessment to identify areas that require capacity enhancement moving forward.
Natome explained that the already scarce water resources in the county were facing yet another threat from climate change and pollution hence the need for enhanced collaboration in finding more sustainable solutions.
The meeting was also attended and addressed by Water services director Tito Ochieng and UNEP’s Africa Office Ecosystems subprogram coordinator Levis Kavagi.
