By Clifford Akumu
Water sector players in Kenya have called for youth empowerment to champion water catchment restoration and management issues across the country, a move aimed at conserving crucial water towers.
The youth, the experts added, can employ their digital storytelling skills to champion and create awareness on water resource management and restoration issues nationwide.
Mohamed Shurie, Chief Executive Officer of Water Resource Authority (WRA) said creating awareness on water catchment restoration is vital.
“We need to engage the youth on water resources management issues in the country to transform the water sector,” Shurie said.
Dr William Ojwang’, World Wide Fund for Nature(WWF)-Kenya Fresh Water Lead also called upon Kenyans to pay attention to mitigation and adaptation measures as the country continues to experience climate-related challenges.
“We want to ensure that Kenyans, especially the young generation, are part of the solutions as we face the climate change issues,” said Dr Ojwang’.
“We have also seen the need to bring the youth on board. A few weeks ago, we had a conference on climate change and water security innovation that brought the youth from around the country to look at what they can do differently in terms of water resource management.”
The experts were speaking during an ICT equipment handover ceremony in Nairobi where a total of 32 desktop computers were donated by the World Wide Fund for Nature- Kenya to the Water Resource Authority to enhance effective data management on water resources monitoring at the regional level.
The computer’s worth Ksh3.34 million will be distributed to six WRA basins and 26 sub-basin areas to equip the agency’s staff in data handling to strengthen water governance.
The infrastructure will boost the officers’ ability to record water resources data that includes quantity and quality of water such as precipitation, water permitting, and water resource users collaborations.
Inadequate data remains a gap in accurate decision-making within the water sector. With funding from the Embassy of the Kingdom of Netherlands in Kenya, WWF-Kenya through the Catchment to Tap project has been promoting integrated water resources management (IWRM) for water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) across the country to improve catchment management for enhanced water access.
Dr Ojwang’ said the donation will boost the informed decision-making process in securing water catchments.
“We want to continue empowering the communities as well as the Kenya National Associations of Water Resources Users Association(KeNAWRUA) umbrella at large so that we can have effective management of water resources,” he said.
He further stressed the need to derisk downstream investment along the water catchment areas to conserve Kenya’s critical water bodies.
“We need to think broadly on how to ensure that our investments in water access and sanitation are not at risk.”
Mohamed Awer, Chief Executive Officer WWF-Kenya on his part noted the impact of water resource management.
“Water resource management is central in the realisation of water access, sanitation, and hygiene,” Awer said, “We need to think about how we manage our water towers.”
Donald Murgor, WRA chairman lauded the move noting, “Without data, you can’t make any plans on water issues.”
He also called for collaboration between the water sector players, and youth engagement to spur growth.
WWF-K was urged to support the agency in acquiring laboratory equipment for testing water quality and increasing telemetric stations in Lake Naivasha, Nakuru, Baringo, and Bogoria. Telemetric stations are automated systems operating on GPR that collect and transmit data in real time to an established database. WRA has around 200 in number and projects to hit 500 countrywide.
The overall aim of the catchment-to-tap program is to strengthen water resource management. WWW-Kenya has further trained WRA staff on GIS, IT skills, data handling, and knowledge management among others.
