The Capacity Building Workshop for Turkana County Government Officers on Gender Mainstreaming was held on 10th to 12th August 2016 at Pearl Hotel in Eldoret. The three day workshop with 35 participants from Turkana County Government officials drawn from Trade, Energy and Infrastructure, Education, Health, Pastoral economy, Agriculture and Gender sectors had the overall  objective of  enhancing the skills of the officers in gender mainstreaming within the policy setting and planning stages of the budget cycle. The expected outcome was to have an action plan on measuring gender indicators. The workshop is part of the activities within the UN joint programmeinTurkana.

UN Women Kenya Team leader- Democratic Governance Robert Simiyu in his opening remarks on behalf of UN Women Country Director stated that development can only be achieved faster if men and women are on the same table. ‘’Opportunities to women would make a great difference in our economy,’’ he pointed out.

Hon. Charles Lokiyoto,Turkana County Public Service, Decentralized Administration and Disaster Management CEC and also the Co-Chair of SRA 1 stated that Gender Mainstreaming needs to assess concerns of both men and women. He explained that Turkana County had been the first county to have 4 ladies and 6 men in the County Executive Committees level.

Participants during group work on Turkana County Government sector programmesfor the year 2016/17 alignment to MTP II GEWE flagships. (Photo by UN Women/Sharon Macharia)

Discussions on alignment of the Turkana County Government sector programmes FY 2016/17 to MTP II GEWE flagships made it clear that capacity building was necessary for the county to do more on institutionalizing gender mainstreaming.

‘’Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Violence Against Women (CEDAW) defines what constitutes discrimination against women and sets out an agenda for national action to end such discrimination,”UN Women Kenya Programme Specialist, Strategic Planning & UN Coordination Nyambura Ngugi, explained as she gave a presentation on CEDAW.

Nyambura Ngugi presented three major frameworks for gender analysis being; Gender roles framework (Harvard), Triple roles framework (Carolyn Moser) and Gender analysis matrix (GAM). ‘’Specific gender disaggregated statistics is some of the information provided by Gender Analysis,’’ She pointed out. From her presentation a discussion arose among the participants on the two main tools in Harvard Framework; The socio-economic activity profile and the access and control profile outlining who is responsible for the different duties between the men, women, boys and girls. This led to a conclusion that socially there are roles meant for women e.g. cooking and reproductive duties while there are those meant for men e.g. offering security and decision making.

‘’Disparity of opportunities is directly related to education levels, network connections, regional dispositions, exposure and economic status,’’ explained Joseph after a power walk exercise.

On the final day Kenya Robert Simiyu led the participants in an exercise on using the art of effective advocacy and using soft skills to promote gender equality.The exercise involved role playing with social groups pitching their ideas before decision makers i.e. the Governor, Principal Secretary Treasuryor a Member of County Assembly. From the exercise it was concluded that evidence and outline the impact of an action was essential when conducting advocacy.

At the end of the workshop all sectors came up with an individual action plan based on Institutionalizing gender mainstreaming in Ministries, Departments and Agencies. The action plans were to be reviewed by their other sector members and agreed onin the next workshop scheduled for September 2016 on Gender Responsive Budgeting.