Speech by Director PSRI, Prof. Kimani Murungaru During Data Dissemination Workshop In

Speech by Director PSRI, Prof. Kimani Murungaru during Data Dissemination Workshop in Homa Bay County on Tuesday October 13, 2015

Representatives of His Excellency the Governor, Honorable Minister for Health, Dr. Lawrence Oteng, Madam Gift,Mr. Daniel Lusava, Deputy Commissioner, Homa Bay County, UNFPA Country Representative, Mr. EzekielNgure ,NCPD Representative, Mr. NzomoMulatya,Other UNFPA staff, Senior Officials in the County Government, My Colleagues at the University of Nairobi, Participants, Ladies and Gentlemen.

On behalf of the Institute, allow me to first thank Your Excellency for the warm welcome Your Government accorded us in March this year when we visited the County to brief the governor on our research activities in Rusinga Island. As you may recall Your Excellency we promised during that briefing to come back for a detailed dissemination. We are pleased that you have once again given us the opportunity to do this. On my behalf and the Institute and indeed the University of Nairobi and all those who have accompanied us I once again express our appreciation.

As we indicated during the briefing session in March, PSRI established a Demographic Surveillance System (DSS) in Rusinga in 2001 to support in the implementation of its mandates in population research, training and technical backstopping. The Site is uniquely designed as community based DSS. The community leaders are involved in planning for the data collection and the research assistants who collect the data are drawn from respective villages within the Island where they are assigned to collect the data. We collect data on births, deaths and migration which enables the Institute to monitor changes in population within the Island. When the site was set up in 2001 there were 4,160 HH with a total population of 17,550 people which has increased to 6,438 HH and the population has doubled to 34,415 as of March 2015.

The data has many potential applications on the County development including planning for basic services such as education, health facilities, identifying the needs of the community and monitoring and evaluating the impact of development activities as we noted during a briefing to His Excellency, the governor and as the presentations will show.

In addition to disseminating the findings from Rusinga, we will present the findings of two other reports undertaken as part of the 8th GOK/UNFPA Country Programme: the Needs Assessment and Maternal Mortality as shown in the programme. The information in the three reports complement each other.

Your Excellency, allow me to highlight some important results in the presentations. The findings from Rusinga suggest a rapidly growing population which is yet to attain the desired standards of living although there have been positive changes. The high population growth is because of the high fertility (on average women have 5 births) since the use of contraception is not as high (50 percent). However there have been notable improvements in the infrastructure particularly roads and connection to the national grid. Another important change has been the increased use of pit latrines in place of the bush as a means of solid human waste and use of solar instead of the lantern.

An aspect that that has not changed is the source of drinking water with the lake still remaining the main source for a majority of the population. Your Excellency it is important to mention that these could be some of the factors contributing to the high infant and child mortality on the island. The most disheartening aspect however is that about 1000 children aged 5-9 years who should be in school are not attending school. The maternal mortality and needs assessment studies on the other hand show that most of the health facilities lack the required preparedness in terms of equipment and staff to provide maternal health services and other reproductive health services which in turn could be contributing to the high maternal mortality rates in the County. Cultural and communication breakdowns could be other constraining factors.

What can be done to improve the situation? As we mentioned during our briefing to your Excellency in March, the Institute is committed to work with your Government to plan and implement appropriate interventions and at the same time monitor and assess their impact using the Rusinga DSS as a model. Using the DSS data for example, it is possible to know the reasons why children are not attending schools and then initiate appropriate interventions which can be replicated across the County. As part of the DSS data collection activities we can partner with your Government to integrate a module to assess the effectiveness of these initiatives annually.

Your Excellency if the health facilities are equipped to the expected standards, PSRI can continuously monitor this on an annual basis and also find out whether this will in turn have reduced maternal mortality rates and then results can be shared in a forum like this. We believe these are actions which do not have major financial implications and within our capacity to implement.

Allow me Your Excellency to refer to the issue of population growth. As mentioned earlier,population growth is high in Homa Bay County. This is due to high fertility rates arising since use of contraception is not prevalent. Part of PSRI’s mandate is to generate knowledge which will enable us counter high levels of fertility as well encourage the use of contraceptives as witnessed in Kirinyaga County.

The latest Demographic and health Survey findings show that women in Kirinyaga give birth to just slightly more than two births as compared to 5in Homa Bay. This credited to the higher use of contraceptives in Kirinyaga where 7 in 10 women use contraceptives compared to 5 in Homa Bay. Again results of such findings can be shared in a forum like this hence resulting in appropriate interventions. homa bay Homa H

As I conclude, I thank Your Excellency once again for the opportunity to conduct this dissemination workshop. I also thank your County Government and all those who have attended this event. I am grateful to NCPD for their support and continued collaboration.

The institute is most grateful to the UNFPA whom we have partnered with and for their financial and other support in ensuring the successful hosting of this data dissemination workshop.Notably, all the reports presented have been funded by the UNFPA. Madam Gift please convey our appreciation to the office of the Country Representative.

Your Excellency, we are greatly honored to have been hosted by you. We thank your Government for providing us with an avenue to conduct the dissemination workshop.

Thank you.

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