KENYA PROGRAMMEMEPLAN 2014

1. Introduction

2013 was a year of great change for Kenya. Elections were held in March and people turned out in huge numbers to vote. The Jubilee Coalition, a coalition of 4 parties which came together during the run up to the elections, won the elections with Uhuru Kenyatta, the Jubilee Leader winning the Presidential election with over 50% of the vote in the first round, denying Raila Odenga the then sitting Prime Minister and pre-election front runner, the opportunity of a runoff. There were some allegations of results fixing, which were challenged through the courts. The results were upheld by the courts and all parties accepted the court rulings. Kenya had peaceful elections.

A new constitution was promulgated in 2010 and the 2013 elections paved the way for a complete change in the governance structure of the country. It has moved from a British model to an American model where the President appoints his cabinet, not from elected officials but from technocrats who are vetted by elected parliamentarians. Two houses of elected officials have been created, a General Assembly where Minister of Parliament (MPs), representing their 290 constituencies sit and a Senate of 47 senators representing the counties. There are additional seats in both houses representing disadvantaged groups. A much greater change is devolution. Provinces and districts have been abolished and a new county structure has been created, with 47 counties, each with its own elected governor and county assembly, each with its own executive body. Budget devolution is part of the process which is designed to move governance and the decision making closer to the people, the end users. It is designed to make government more accountable to the people. It is however expensive.

The new structure creates great challenges and opportunities for Concern as we develop mechanisms for engagement at both county and national level to leverage a pro poor agenda.

Both the President and the Vice President were indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC) prior to the elections and are currently undergoing court appearances in the Hague. The process is expected to take quite some time.

It is expected that the economic growth rate will increase over the coming years but the cost of the new governance structure will offset much of the gains, certainly in the short term. To try and reduce the budget deficit, a punishing VAT of 16% has been imposed on a wide range of consumables which is negatively impacting on the poor, particularly those in the slums.

Oil and rare minerals have been discovered in Kenya but the commercial value has yet to be determined. While the hope is that these resources will contribute to national economic growth there are fears that these will create instability in the marginalised areas,exacerbating poverty.

Implementation of theConcern Country Strategic Plan for Kenya 2012-2016is underway. The primary geographic focus is on urban slums and the arid and semi-arid lands (ASAL). The Country Strategy comprises three strategic goals and nine country specific objectives. A significant shift in strategy is resultingin a greater focus on people centred approaches as the foundation of programming and on government obligation in pro poor social and economic service delivery. Delivering a quality emergency response founded on the elasticity principle remains as a core result for Concern Kenya;this meansworking with poor, vulnerable people who are exposed to shocks, expanding and contracting our programmes to deal with the context be it emergency or development. The Concern Kenya Programme will work in the following three areas: Education, Nutrition, Food Income and Markets, with the HIV and AIDS and the Advocacyprogramme integrated into each sector.The aim to expand into WASH in 2014is dependent on funding becoming available.

Concern Kenya withdrewoperations from Kajiado in mid-2013 with closure of projects Migori and Homa Bay following at the end of the year. Geographic refocusing willbe informed through assessments underway in the 4 poorest counties where Concern does not have a presence; expansion to new areas will be subject to funding availability. Despite budget cuts, Kenya’s strategic plan calls for significant growth over its five year period with leveraging co financing a key strategic objective. Multi annual funding instruments came on stream in 2013 with Concern participating in an Education Consortium led by CfBT Education Trustwhich secured DFID funding. In 2012 Concern Kenya entered into a consortium with Oxfam, ACTED, VSF Belgium, and Swiss VSF. This collaboration built on the resilience agenda and the individual strengths and expertise of the organisations for a more holistic programme across a wider geographical spread. This experience will be used in developing other funding applications in 2014. A Concern country level application to DFID for multi annual funding for ASAL resilience was approved towards the end of 2013.Concern is a member of the ASAL Alliance, a group of NGOs who advocate both government and donors for policies and resources supportive of ASAL areas.

Work continued with partners on deepening their skills in people centred approaches.Mainstreaming HIV and AIDS, human rights based advocacy, accountability planning, including complaints response mechanismswill continue in 2014. The devolved governance structure presents opportunities for Concern at county level to input into the development of community driven pro poor policies for more effective government. Funding sources are being explored.

2. Programmes

Health and Nutrition Programme:Concern will continue to work with health systems structures to integrate High Impact Nutrition Intervention (HINI) into the health system delivery to improve the health and nutritional status of children under five and pregnant and lactating women in the poorest communities in ASAL region (Moyale, Sololo, Chalbi and Marsabit Central), and urban informal settlement in Nairobi (Mathare, Korogocho, Baba Dogo, Mukuru Ruben, Mukuru Njenga, Dandora Kangemi) and Kisumu. In 2014 the programme will focus on:

  • Transforming socio cultural practices that negatively affect under nutrition. Concern will lead partners, through Community Conversations (CCs), to transform socio cultural practices that negatively affect the health and nutrition of women and children. A second approach for behaviour change will be employed in both the ASAL and urban programmes by conducting barrier analysis that will be addressed to achieve a desired behavioural change in maternal and child health.
  • Strengthening district and county health system capacity to deliver quality Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) services at the health facilities and at the community level. Concern will strengthen the capacity of District Health Management Team to provide on-the-job mentoring and quarterly joint support supervision. To strengthen the community level services, support will be provided for the establishment of community units and the different levels of training to operationalize the national community strategy in ASAL. In addition, system strengthening will focus on planning, budgeting, recruitment and retention of health workers, county and district level coordination as well as reporting through District Health Information Systems (DHIS). In urban areas, Concern will work closely with the Ministry of Health(MoH) for the roll out of the national urban nutrition strategy which Concern played key role in developing.
  • Improved policy implementation and resource allocation that support nutrition services though advocacy work at all levels. Advocacy will focus on lobbying the MoH for proper planning and prioritization of funding of HINI as well as recruitment and retention of health workers and provision of health services in the urban slums. The quality of healthcare in ASAL areas is constrained by poor staffing among other things. Concern will continue to advocate at county level for equitable staff allocation and retention. Concern will take a lead in the development of the national advocacy and communication strategy together with MoH and other partners.

Concern will continue working with the MoH on Emergency Preparedness by supporting the scale up of the IMAM surge model to other ASAL districts, community surveillance and building the County government in conducting SMART surveys in line with sectors 2013/2014 objectives. Concern will strive to promote peace through conflict mitigation initiatives through the Community Conversations methodology. To ensure maximum positive impact for the beneficiaries, Concern aims to ensure an integrated MNCH service delivery by linking facility level services to community level structures. This is dependent on the functional community strategy which Concern is currently supporting MoH to roll out. Capacity building initiatives will continue with a key focus on leadership and governance training at District Health Management Team (DHMT) level in light of the new devolved government structures. In the urban programme, integration with MNCH services will take priority given the high co-morbidity on malnourished children. Concern plans to expand to the Mombasa slums subject to availability of funding. Preliminary discussions have taken place. Kenya was the 30thcountry to join the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement and Concern will work with the relevant actors to deliver on the agreed government action plan.

Education& HIV and AIDS:Most Vulnerable Children Access and Complete Primary Education:In 2014 the programme enters the third year of 2012 – 2017 strategy that seeks to uphold the right to free and compulsory basic education for all children in Kenya. The programme targets all children living in abject poverty with an extra focus on girl/most vulnerable children in urban slums and arid and semi-arid lands. The programme will be implemented in slums across 9 sub counties in Nairobi and Marsabit County where 76% of the population is illiterate and on average 84% below the poverty line.

The programme will be implemented in partnership with NGOs that are well grounded in target communities namely: Daraja Civic; Redeemed Gospel Development Programme; Mukuru Slums Development Programme (MSDP) in Nairobi slums. In Marsabit County Concern will partner with Horn of Africa Development Initiative (HODI) in Marsabit Central and Pastoralist Integrated Support Programme (PISP) in Chalbi.

Good learning outcomes are at the apex of this programme. Through Community Conversations (CC), community capacity will be enhanced to demand quality education services from the government and participate in school management structures to ensure effective educational services for their children. The Concern Kenya workplan fits into the Ministry of Education Child Friendly Schools Framework that seeks to create safe environment for children. Concern will take to scale advocacy to increase education resources for poor children and registration and funding of slum and other schools that serve the poor.

The programme will achieve the following 4 results: (1) Communities demonstrate that they value education and safety of all children; (2) County education structures deliver quality primary education; (3) Improved governance and management of 312 schools; (4) Improved Implementation of Free and Compulsory Primary Education (Education act No.14 of 2013).

Key outputs

  • % of boys and girls progressing through grade (grade retention rate)
  • % of pupils scoring minimum standards of literacy skills (reading fluency and comprehension) [UWEZO]
  • % of schools and communities implementing Time on Task
  • % Increase in budget allocation for education in target areas
  • 100 communities are taking action to reduce stigma and discrimination and risky sexual behaviour affecting 15,000 (60%) affected children;
  • 5000 of children affected by HIV and AIDS that receive health, education, psychosocial services

Food, Income, and Markets (FIM)

The Food, Income, and Markets (FIM)Programme was designed in 2012. A new programme for the Kenya Country Programme, it encompasses both pastoral settings (Marsabit County)and urban settings

(Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu). The main objective ofthe programme is to create resilience to shocks in rapidly changing environments.Building on the achievements realised in 2013, the programme will focus on four result areas in 2014, specifically, increasing return on assets, improved capacity to participate in and interact with markets, reducing marginalisation and improving adaptability to a changing environment, reaching approximately 10,000 beneficiaries in the urban slums and the ASAL areas.

Advocacy, Social Protection and Disaster Risk Reduction are the three core strategies that will form the basis for contributing to these results and upon which the specific activities for 2014 will be implemented. As the country has moved into a new governance system following the 2013 general elections i.e. devolved governance, the programme will have a specific focus on building capacity of local government structures in all areas of the programmes work. The programme will place a huge emphasis on systems strengthening when delivering its services and approaches to the communities.These results will be achieved working through partnership with Community Initiative Facilitation and Assistance (CIFA) and Pastoralist Integrated Support Programme (PISP) in the Arid Lands and Kisumu Medical Education Trust (KMET) and Redeemed Gospel Church (RGC) in the urban slums.

The advocacy work in 2014 will continue to focus on resource allocation for social protection at national and county levels as well as the implementation of the social protection policy. In the ASALs, advocacy work will focus on the implementation of the Water Act and the establishment of the citizen’s participation forum across Marsabit with CCs as the main tool for achieving this. This will be done in collaboration with the county government.

Specific outputs for 2014 include:

  • A public-private partnership model for water service provision and management is designed and piloted in Marsabit county.
  • 2,500 beneficiaries are accessing financial services (savings / loans)
  • At least 2 value chains are strengthened
  • Atleast one drought resistant livestock breed/species is introduced in 5 vulnerable communities
  • 10 pastoralists field schools established and form the platform for uptake of new technologies and production methods
  • At least 3 organizations working in urban slum adopt the use of the urban surveillance tool
  • 15 communities have disaster preparedness and contingency plans linked to the county governmentand 20 communities implement atleast 1 priority of their disaster preparedness and response plan.
  • Atleast 15 accountability platforms are established in Marsabit county
  • A formal framework for citizen participation in governance (Community Conversations Model

3.Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E)

Internal ME systems will continue to be strengthened during 2014. Each programmehas a five year programme proposal, logical framework together with an M&E strategy and annual plan. The M&E plans provide indicator definitions to ensure clarity, as well as the time bound allocation of roles and responsibilities to ensure relevant information is collected and analysed in a timely fashion. Annual M&E plans complement the 5 year strategies with indicators which effectively monitor progress against targets as well as impact indicators that assess whether objectives are being achieved.

All programme M&E plans include participatory quarterly reviews; thesewill be facilitated by partners and/or programmestaff to ensure the key stakeholders analyseprogramme implementation enabling strengths to be built upon and weaknesses addressed thus improving quality. These reviews will also ensure the timely collection and analysis of information facilitating better reporting and therefore strengthened accountability.

Evaluations and Reviews:

Programme / Contextual Analysis / Survey (e.g. baseline/ mid line/ endline) / Mid Term Review/ Evaluation / Internal / External / Donor (if Applicable)
Education / Commence documentation on Child Friendly Schools in project schools 1st quarter / ‘Time on Task’ study
February / external / DFID
HIV&AIDS / Secure the future of children affected by HIV&AIDS 2010 – 2013 strategy – July / HIV/AIDS mainstreaming Review - July / Dependent upon funding
HIV & AIDS / A final evaluation of the HIV 2010 – 2014 strategy -
December / External or SAL / Concern
Health & Nutrition / Annual Nutrition Surveys Urban (January/February), Moyale and Chalbi (July/August) / internal / ECHO/UNICEF
Community Based Surveillance – Quarterly in ASAL and Bi-annually in Urban (To Be Collaborated with FIM) / external / ECHO/UNICEF
Coverage Assessments Once per year per programme area i.e. Urban (January/February), Moyale (July/August) and Chalbi (July/August) / external / ECHO/UNICEF

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