By Bob Aston
Also present included representation from Agricultural Sector Development Support Programme (ASDSP) and the Laikipia County Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, Fisheries, Livestock Development, Environment and Natural Resources.
Ms. Esther said Laikipia Maliasili will help to close
knowledge gaps, promote sharing of projects experiences among grantees, connect
beneficiaries to policy makers, improve accessibility of indigenous knowledge,
enhancing feedback of project activities, promoting replication as well as
ensuring that the communities are better informed about Sustainable Land
Management (SLM).
Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN)
held an inception workshop for knowledge sharing project supported by United
Nations Development Program (UNDP) Global Environment Facility (GEF) Small
Grants Programme (SGP) at Beisa Hotel, Nanyuki, Laikipia County from 10th to 11th
June 2014. The inception workshop titled Enhancing communities participation
for effective natural resources management and enhanced resilience in Laikipia
County have initiated a quarterly newsletter called Laikipia Maliasili.
The UNDP GEF SGP grantees present at
the workshop included; Kantuka Community Based Organization, Upper Ewaso Narok
Water Resource Users Association, Rumuruti Forest Association, Ilmamusi Forest
Association, Tuungane Tusaidiane community project, Kenya Organic Agriculture Network
(KOAN), Sustainable Agriculture Community Development Programme (SACDEP),
Segera Jirani na Mazingira, Yiaku Laikipia Trust and Laikipia Central Community
Development (LAICCODO).
Ms. Esther taking participants through newsletter creation process |
Also present included representation from Agricultural Sector Development Support Programme (ASDSP) and the Laikipia County Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, Fisheries, Livestock Development, Environment and Natural Resources.
Laikipia Maliasili will feature four
different themes namely; biodiversity conservation, ecotourism-Climate change, Payment
for Ecosystem Services (PES), carbon credit and REDD+, water and energy. A
school corner will also be established to incorporate Sustainable Land
Management (SLM) related activities done by schools.
The first edition of the newsletter
will be in July and will consist of both English and Kiswahili version. The
UNDP GEF SGP grantees also selected a team to sit in the newsletter editorial
board.
“Through Laikipia Maliasili, grantees
will be able to capture and document indigenous knowledge relevant to
sustainable natural resources use and management for posterity,” said Ms. Esther
Lung’ahi, ALIN- Project officer.
The news letter target audiences include
partners, farmers, farmer groups, government extension workers, schools among
others.
Ms. Esther said that in a bid to
enhance content creation the grantees will each send two representations from
their organizations to be trained on citizen journalism from 30th
June to 4th July. They will be trained on news writing, creative
writing, feature writing, photography, interviewing, videography, online
journalism (blogging) and media law and Ethics.
Participants during the inception workshop |
“The newsletter will help in
providing a platform for knowledge sharing between partners supported by UNDP
GEF SGP being implemented in Laikipia County,” said Ms. Esther.
The UNDP GEF SGP grantees also agreed
to use Laikipia Rural Voices (LRV) blog for disseminating project
activities.LRV will provide a platform in their blog for the same purpose. The
blog has also been integrated with the social media to help in dissemination of
information. This is also aimed at enhancing visibility of UNDP GEF SGP Project
Laikipia Maliasili will help to
complement the UNDP SGP knowledge sharing project whose objectives include; to
facilitate consistent knowledge sharing about Sustainable Landscape Management
(SLM), to facilitate better knowledge sharing between UNDP SGP
Projects in Laikipia County, to establish a knowledge access space for sharing
and demonstration of technologies in Natural Resource Management (NRM) and to
learn what the other partners are engaged in.
The outcome of the
project is to ensure better informed community members capable of adapting good
SLM practices, preservation of biodiversity in Laikipia County, improved
livelihoods of communities, improved communication and knowledge sharing,
enhanced online visibility of UNDP GEF SGP project and improved accessibility
of indigenous knowledge for enhancing communities resilience.
Knowledge sharing about SLM is essential to the successful
management of natural resources. Opportunities for collaboration can play an
important role in allowing different stakeholders to bring their unique skills
and perspectives together to address various challenges faced.
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