Field Mission Briefing Notes

Prepared by: Elly Wanjala

Embracing design thinking means believing that all problems, even the seemingly intractable ones like poverty, gender inequality, climate change, etc. are solvable. Moreover, it means believing that the people who face those problems every day are the ones who hold the key to their answer. Design thinking offers problem solvers a chance to design with communities, to deeply understand the people they are looking to serve, to dream up scores of ideas, and to create innovative new solutions rooted in people’s actual needs.

With this background and ensuring the aspirations of young people in Tana River County are modelled in the county development plans, GrEYAP Project conducted a 5-day Leaders Bootcamp/workshop in Hola. This was designed with a proposed field mission as follow ups to the leaders’ boot camp where the trained youth leaders would be able to practice and apply the design thinking skills at the grassroots.

This approach would help to equip 50 youth leaders with the necessary knowledge and skills in elevating the voices of 150 young people (community champions) in Tana River county while tapping into their skills to speak for climate action within the framework of the new county vision of cluster-based spatial planning and development. The mission was conducted in all the 15 wards within the 3 sub-counties of the Tana River County grouped into 6 clusters.

• We met and engaged 214 young people in the 15 wards in the 3 sub-counties (Tana North, Tana River and Tana Delta).
• Young people are currently undertaking various livelihoods’ initiatives largely influenced by their access to natural assets: crop and livestock production, fodder production, fishing, bee keeping, sand harvesting, block making and ease of initiating an enterprise such as retail stores (kiosks), boda-boda, etc. Capacity building and provision of farming inputs could help improve production of the various enterprises that they are currently engaged in.
• Most of these livelihoods are seasonal necessitating the need for diversification of livelihoods, for instance the rainy season comes with high tides and a slowdown in manufacturing blocks and harvesting sand. The pandemic has also affected most of their businesses calling for the need for adaptability.
• We met talented young people passionate about sports and arts, but they lack the support to nurture their craft, for example, recording studio, musical instruments, sports equipment, and mentors. Young people residing in remote areas decried neglect from both state and non-state actors.
• Young people, especially those in hard-to-reach areas lack the influence on policies that affect their livelihoods. Access to public participation forums is challenging as venues are inaccessible mostly conducted in county headquarters.
• Competition for limited resources between pastoralists and farmers cited as the main cause of conflict, “sisi tuko na mifugo yetu, ile nyasi tuko nayo haiwezi tosheleza mahitaji yetu sote.” Avenues for redress are also not helpful “watu wakienda polisi inaishia hapo”. The process of reporting the cases is tedious hindering the aggrieved parties from pursuing legal redress thus opting for violent ways to resolve the conflict.

Institutional Learning

We had a chance to visit previously implemented projects initiated by UNDP (ERU). These projects could offer an opportunity for institutional learning across portfolios about what works in the application of sustainable livelihoods approaches if identified, analyzed, and evaluated for feedback into the GrEYAP programmes.

Gender Dynamics

In some youth engagement forums, there was little or no representation and/or participation from young women. We learnt that for those who are married, they are forced to seek permission from their spouses which is not always guaranteed, others are not easily allowed to venture out by their parents. There are also gender-related barriers to participation in TVET institutions for married young women who would wish to enroll for classes but are unable to owing to childcare and domestic responsibilities since the TVET programmes are not flexible enough.

Additionally, it was noted that in certain wards most farmers were women. Whereas the composition of Savings and Internal Lending Committees (SILC) groups is women, men have benefitted by virtue of being related (spouses or sons) to the members who loan the monies on their behalf. This has either made or broken homes with the latter being because of defaulting on repayments. Nonetheless, majority of participants mentioned that there have been success stories derived from these village banks such as paying of school fees, building homes, and investing in farming ventures. In one of the wards, where agricultural activities are ongoing, we were told that crop production initiatives had not been successful since young men do not have the time and prefer light duties with quick returns. We also heard that female led initiatives have a higher success rate than the male led initiatives. Women recommended having separate ventures for both genders.