County Treasury, Economic Planning, Special Programmes, ICT & e-Government

The Ministry of County Treasury, Economic Planning, ICT & e-goverment is one of the 10 departments in the County. It plays a pivotal role in the coordination of development planning, mobilization of public resources, and ensuring effective accountability of resources used for the benefit of the County.

The ministry derives its mandate from the Constitution of Kenya 2010 and other related subordinate laws, including Public Management Finance Act 2012, County Government Public Finance Management Transition Act 2013 and County Government Act 2012. It is responsible for finance and economic planning of the County.

It coordinates the County Government ministries and departments in the preparation of the annual County budget. It is the responsibility of the department to initiate and guide all sectors in the preparation of their budgets. The department also provides accounting, auditing, revenue collection and procurement services. The ministry’s focus is categorized into seven broad areas defined as units, namely Internal Audit, Procurement, Treasury, Revenue, Economic Planning, Budgeting, Special program and Disaster Management. Each unit is headed by a director.

Public Service, Conflict Management and Devolved Units

The Ministry of Public Service, Conflict Management and Devolved Units was created to provide strategic leadership and guidance to the public service on the Human Resource Management and Development and promote a cohesive society whose values are harmonious and multi-cultural. It boasts of five departments: Public Service Management, Devolved Units, Conflict Management, Cohesion and Integration, De-radicalization and Countering Violent Extremism and Governance, Civic Education and Public Participation. Each department is headed by a County Chief Officer.

Public Service Management basically undertakes Human Resources Management and Development ranging from Payroll Management, Registry (keeping records of county employees), Training and Development and Staff Welfare among other functions. On the other hand, Devolved Units coordinates all County Government functions at the decentralized units (Sub-County, Ward and Village). Conflict Management, Cohesion and Integration department is tasked with managing conflicts and promoting cohesive and integrated society. The Department of De-radicalization and Countering Violent Extremism is one of the two newly created departments in the Ministry. It is mandated to help in the fight against radicalization and violent extremism that has wreaked havoc in the County.  Governance, Civic Education and Public Participation is also a newly created department that was formed to undertake civic education and citizen engagement in all of the County Government undertakings. It is meant to actively involve the Community in all Government Projects and programs before, during and after implementation.

The department has achieved the following among others

• Strengthened human resource registry (records) operations by constructing a modern registry and giving guidelines and procedures for the day to day functions to safeguard the security of information, records and file management.
• Organized a regional Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) conference in Mandera which brought together more than 300 participants from Mandera, Wajir, Isiolo and Garissa.
• Organized religious leader’s consultative meetings on CVE in Mandera East, Mandera South, Lafey, Kutulo and Mandera North.
• Launched the Mandera County action Plan (MCAP) on CVE which will be implemented in the next five years. The MCAP is a blueprint which will guide the implementation of CVE program by community members, County Government, National Government and NSA.
• Managed to reduce terror related incidents within Mandera town through concerted efforts of security agencies, community and County Government.
• Organized Peace Day celebration in Rhamu attended by all leaders to commemorate the existing peace and resilience of the communities living in Rhamu.
• Managed to reduce inter-clan conflict through sustained dialogue and community engagement.
• Constructed and operationalized 15 ward offices to enhance service delivery to the people.
• Constructed and operationalized dumping sites in all the sub-county headquarters to improve garbage and waste management.
• Procured 20 motorcycles for prevention of violent extremism efforts and the fight against drug and substance abuse.

Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries, and Irrigation

Produced
Agriculture is one of the main economic engagements in Mandera, coming only second to pastoralism as the county’s income earner. The county grows maize and cowpeas, mostly in the irrigation belt of Mandera East, Lafey and Banisa. The same crops are also grown in the agro-pastoral zone of Mandera West and the hinterlands of Lafey, Mandera North and Mandera South. Fodder for livestock is grown in the irrigated livelihood zone. In the irrigated livelihood zone of Mandera East, North, Lafey, and Banisa, horticulture is practiced and there is great potential for fruit and vegetable production.

Mangoes, papaws, melons, guavas, lemons and bananas are the main fruits found here. Kales, onions, tomatoes, capsicum, coriander and pepper also do well in the County.

Main Livestock Breeds and Facilities
Mandera County is endowed with good environment for livestock production. The County Government conducted livestock census in 2014 to obtain reliable data that could be used for planning, development and policy formulation on matters related to livestock. The specific objective was to obtain information on livestock population, types of livestock, livestock-related products, and other variables necessary for developing information-based Master Plan for the County’s livestock sector

Health Services

Mandera County Government has increased healthcare financing, with an average annual budgetary allocation of KSh2.4 billion, which translates to 600 per cent increase before devolution to address its policy objectives and reduce inequalities. To improve infrastructure (physical, equipment, transport and ICT) coverage, the County Government has increased the number of referral hospitals from one to four to improve access to specialized services within six years of devolution, while three more hospitals have been upgraded from Level III to Level IV. The number of primary healthcare facilities has also been increased from 18 to 69. To improve access to primary healthcare, 61 new dispensaries and 25 new housing units for health workers were built between 2014 to 2018.

The department has achieved the following including

1. Operationalized comprehensive maternal and child health care units and services. Operationalization of three comprehensive maternal and neonatal units (MCRH, Elwak and Takaba) has been successfully concluded.
2. Gazettement of new and ungazetted health facilities to serve underserved areas
3. Disease outbreak response and control
4. Improved transport and logistics The Ministry has secured 10 motorbikes through THS, 2 vehicles (1 from GAVI HSS and 1 from THS) which has facilitated mobility of staffs and logistics across the County
5. Establishment of mini food laboratory in the County

Through concerted efforts by the department, the Ministry has managed to establish two mini food labs in Takaba and Mandera through partnership with WFP.

Before the devolved system of governance started working in 2013, Mandera County suffered the worst world health indicators that even surpassed the national and global averages. For instance, it inherited the worst

Maternal Mortality Rate indicators worldwide.
The Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) indicators stood at 3,795 deaths per 100,000 live births, as compared to the national average of 488 deaths per 100,000 live births. According to these statistics, the county has by far surpassed even those countries that have experienced or continue to suffer accelerated violent conflicts around the world. At the advent of devolution, the other health statistics had not been any better. For instance, in March 2013, there were 53 health facilities in the entire county, out of which only three were operational at less than 10% capacity. The county inherited from the national Government 154 healthcare workers, many of them unskilled. The county had only one medical health officer and one old and dilapidated ambulance serving the entire county. There was only one theater at the Mandera Hospital without proper equipment. Mandera hospital was shockingly in a deplorable disrepair state while other facilities were equally in similar state. The runaway maternal mortality rate was caused largely by, lack of skilled health care workers, lack of equipment, lack of referral system and lack of operating theaters among other impeding factors

Water, Energy, Environment, and Natural Resources

Water Supply Schemes
The county now has six urban, six institutional and 94 rural water supply schemes. Mandera Urban Water Supply System, which is the worst performing urban scheme with a water supply coverage level of 26% (IMPACT-Issue No. 8, An Annual Performance Review of Kenya’s Water Sector in the eyes of WASREB), is run
by Mandera Water and Sewerage Company on behalf of Mandera County Government, and serves Mandera Town and its environs. The other five urban and 94 rural water supply schemes within the county are managed by the County Water and Natural Resources Department.

Water Sources and Access
The County Government of Mandera has over the past five financial years drilled 69 new boreholes in areas, where water was previously scarce. Of the 69 boreholes, 58 are functional. During this period, the County Government also constructed 61 new earth pans and dams of capacity between 20,000m³ and 110,000m³. Up to 19 of these water pans and dams have a capacity of between 60,000m3 – 110,000m³ while the other 40 pans are 15,000m³ to 30,000m³.

The County Government also developed 31 new rural and institutional water supply schemes, rehabilitated 60 existing rural and urban water supply schemes across the county and constructed an additional 94 underground tanks of 225,000 litres and 600,000 litres in capacity. These have not only availed an additional 8,500,000 litres of water daily for domestic and livestock uses from boreholes, but has also provided an extra net annual water storage capacity of 2,310,000m³.

Energy Access
Mandera’s main source of energy is firewood, used by 93.6% of the households for cooking (KNBS 2013), with Lafey, Mandera West and Mandera South having the highest level firewood use at 98% each, while Mandera East’s highest level of charcoal use stands at 30%.
Mandera East, Mandera North, Mandera South and Mandera West Sub-county headquarters have electricity supply as new electricity coverage extends to Lafey and Banissa Sub-counties. Only 3% of Mandera County residents use electricity for lighting. A further 33% use lanterns, 13% tin lamps while 37% use wood. The county has untapped potential in solar energy that can be exploited for household and commercial purposes. Due to its environmental and climatic conditions, the county is a potential for development of sustainable green energy supply, which can be achieved by exploiting solar, wind, biofuel and coal petroleum energy.

Physiographic and Natural Conditions
This section presents the county’s population, physical and natural features highlighting its topography, ecological and climatic conditions.
Physical and Topographic Features
Mandera County is characterised by low-lying rocky hills resting on the plains that rise gradually from 400m above sea level in the south at Elwak, to 970m above sea level on the border with Ethiopia. The rest of the topography is low-lying, characterised by dense vegetation with thorny shrubs of savannah type. This is especially found along the foots of isolated hills, covered by bushes, shrubs, boulders and the invasive prosopis juliflora (mathenge) shrubs. The flat plains make drainage very poor, causing flash floods during heavy rains. There are no lakes, swamps or dams, but earth pans are a common feature in the county.

Education, Culture, Tourism, and Sports

Education and literacy status is a critical component to socio-economic and political human development. It is one of the pillars that will drive the county towards attainment of Vision 2030 and UN convention goals on sustainable development on access to educational opportunities

Pre-School Education
The Early Childhood and Development Education is one of the functions fully devolved, as provided under Schedule 4 of the Constitution, 2010. The Mandera County Government has invested in the ECDE sector, which has 259 public ECDE centres with an enrolment of 34,341 children, of which 19,066 are boys and 15,275 are girls as at 2017.

Primary Education
Despite the fact that primary education is not devolved, the County Government has interest in the sector since that is where pupils from the ECDE level are admitted. The primary education sector has been lagging behind and that is why the County Government has to intervene when a gap arises.The County has 259 public primary schools with a total enrolment of 183,560 pupils. Of these, 115,422 are boys and the remaining 68,138 girls. There are a total 1,079 teachers serving the schools, with a shortfall of 910. The teacher, pupil ratio is, therefore, 1:91. The dropout rate is 6.6 per cent. The Primary Education NER for the county is 42.4 per cent (64.4% boys and 35.5% girls) compared to the national rate of 77.2 per cent (76.2 per cent males and 78.3 per cent females).

There are 30 mobile schools, eight in Mandera East, seven in Lafey, two in Mandera West, eight in Banisa and five in Mandera North constituencies. Furtger, there are 27 low-cost boarding schools, fully funded by the national Government.

Non-Formal Education
The county has institutions such as madrasa that teaches Islamic religious studies and jurisprudence.

Youth polytechnics
The County has seven operational vocational training centres namely Mandera, Fino, Elwak, Rhamu, Takaba Rhamu Dimtu and Banisa. The centres provide technical courses, including dressmaking and tailoring, motor vehicle mechanic, welding and fabrication, building technology, electrical installation, hairdressing and beauty therapy, ICT and carpentry.

Secondary Education
There are 46 public secondary schools in the County, with Moi Girls’ and Mandera Boys’ secondary schools being of national status. The total enrolment is 12,259 (8,545 boys and 3,714 girls), with a total 376 teachers with a CBE 645. Even with this, there is still a shortfall of 360 teachers, thus giving a teacher, student ratio of 1:36. The secondary NER for the county stood at 5.2 per cent (7.6 per cent boys and 2.2 per cent girls) compared to the national rate of 24.0 per cent (22.2 per cent boys and 25.9 per cent girls)

Tertiary Education
There are tertiary training institutions in the county, including Mandera Teachers Training College, Mandera Technical Training Institute and Mandera ECDE Training Centre. The Department of Vocational Education and Training is planning to operationalise the other two VTC. There are three private colleges namely Maarifa College (which offers different courses, such as computer packages, secretarial, and business studies), Frontier Training Institute and Border Point Teachers College. The County has not a single public university, and the Mandera County leadership is out to ensure that there is one in the near future.

Adult and Continuing Education
The county will employ 150 adult education teachers and construct classrooms and boarding wings for the adult centres as they are in need of classes for both primary and secondary level. The county will use ECDE classrooms in the afternoon sessions for adult education training. Our mission is to eradicate illiteracy and promote life-long learning among adults and youth who are just out of school to enable them to make informed decisions and become self-reliant.

Sports, Culture and Creative Arts

Museums, Heritage and Cultural Sites
Mandera County is rich in culture and arts. The County Government encourages the preservation of heritage and culture. The county is in the process of establishing two museums in Mandera East anElwak to preserve the traditional cultural tools and artefacts.
Talent Academies
Talent programmes and extra-curricular activities such as sports have been incorporated into the education system where annual sport programmes are held in schools. The County also plans to embark on talent show and programmes that encourages youth to showcase their inherent talents and skills, as this would createemployment opportunities and improve their living standards.
Sports Facilities
Mandera County has identified sport as a good tool necessary for enhancing peaceful co-existence and helping to conserve the environment. Sport plays a significant role as a promoter of social integration and networks, and can help promote ideals of peace, solidarity, tolerance and justice. It can play a part in economic development in different geographical, cultural and other contexts. However, this department does not have adequate resources and the County Government has decided to facilitate it to explore the potential of youth in sports and enable them to build professional career.
The county will also mobilise, sensitise and provide direction for people of Mandera County to participate in sports for recreation, competition, career development and as a source of living. The county collaborates with community organisations, companies, schools, and government departments to increase participation at all levels and provide easy transition from community and school clubs to professional clubs.

Lands, Physical Planning, Housing and Urban Development

Land Ownership Categories/Classification
Land, as a factor of production, is the most important resource in agricultural production. Mandera County has an area of 25,991.5km2. Most of the land is rangeland supporting livestock production. In the context of agricultural production, land suitability for crop production is limited to availability of water hence the concentration of crop production activities along Daua River and other places with water catchments.

The range of crops that can be grown in the county includes cereals, pulses, horticultural crops, corn oil crops and fruit trees. The main challenge in the county is land degradation resulting in some areas rendered unsuitable for crop production. The land available for agriculture has not been fully exploited due to lack of resources and the pastoralist nature of the community.

Housing Types
In Mandera County, 7% of homes have either brick or stonewalls. Up to 8% of homes have mud/wood or mud/cement walls, while 18% have wooden walls. Less than 1% of the homes have corrugated iron walls, while 64% have grass thatched houses locally referred to as manyatta. Only 3% have tin or other walls (KNBS 2013). Mandera East constituency has the highest share of brick/stone walls at 26% while Lafey constituency has the lowest share.

However, with the coming of devolution, there has been improvement in housing, with most of the towns now being home to brick-walled houses and apartments. This resulted from the exploitation of the quarry mines and the improvement of property rights in the county, increasing people’s confidence to develop private property.

Energy Access
Mandera’s main source of energy is firewood, used by 93.6% of the households for cooking (KNBS 2013), with Lafey, Mandera West and Mandera South having the highest level of firewood use at 98% each, while Mandera East’s highest level of charcoal use stands at 30%.
Mandera East, Mandera North, Mandera South and Mandera West Sub- County headquarters have electricity supply as new electricity coverage extends to Lafey and Banissa Sub-counties. Only 3% of Mandera County residents use electricity for lighting. A further 33% use lanterns, 13% tin lamps while 37% use wood. The county has untapped potential in solar energy that can be exploited for household and commercial purposes. Due to its environmental and climatic conditions, the county is a potential for development of sustainable green energy supply, which can be achieved by exploiting solar, wind, biofuel and coal petroleum energy.

Trade, Investment, Industry, and Cooperative Development

Markets
There were five (5) main markets with three hundred and fifteen stalls (315), five ESP shade before the advent of devolution. The county government has increased the number of markets by building fifteen (15) new modern markets with six hundred and sixty (665) stalls, three bale shades with a capacity of one hundred forty-two stands.

Industrial Parks
There are huge resources whose potential remain fully unexploited for industrial investments and are used or exported in their raw primary form without any value addition. There is need to establish processing plants to add value to these basic raw materials, branding, labeling and packaging in order to improve their market value and export potential. This is bound to earn more returns for further reinvestment to create more employment opportunities.

Major Industries
The county has confectioneries and drinking water manufacturing industries, most of which are based in the major towns. This is a clear indication that Mandera County has the potential to be an industrial hub. The county government is on a mission to attract major industries and would negotiate tax subsidies to ease the establishment of industries in the county.

Cooperative Societies
There are 158 registered co-operatives, out of which 131 are active and the rest are dormant. A total of 19co-operatives did not take off after registration. Attempts to locate the promoters have been fruitless. Efforts are being made to revive the dormant ones and also streamline and strengthen the active co-operatives. These co-operatives are in nine categories.

Youth, Gender and Social Services

The Ministry of Youth, Gender and Social Services is comprised of two departments: Gender and Social Services and Youth Affairs. The department of Gender and Social Services deals with women empowerment, persons with disability and children welfare while the department of Youth Affairs deals with all youth related affairs except sports.

Key Achievements

These are development projects the ministry has implemented since 2013 to date

Housing and restocking for vulnerable groups in mandera county

The ministry of youth, gender and social services  has  been  tasked  with   the   duties and responsibilities of servicing, advocating, promoting and improving the living standard of the most vulnerable persons in the society. Due to this among many projects the department is undertaking, it has considered improving the living standard of the most vulnerable in the society by building houses for them and as well as restocking for the most vulnerable in Mandera county, in line with this, the ministry constructed 160 houses and restocked 116 households for the most vulnerable people across Mandera county. The project is also in line with the National BIG FOUR agenda of H.E president, thus it’s important to undertake the said project.

PWD resource centre

PWD resource center was a project proposed by H.E the Governor during the financial year 2017/2018. The facility currently is complete and has been handed over to the department in June 2018/2019. Operationalization of this center is ongoing. The center will be a place where service for PWD will be rendered.

Mandera rehabilitation centre

Rehabilitation center was also a project proposed by H.E the Governor during the financial year 2017/2018. The facility currently is complete; its construction was to conclude 2018/2019 but due to some technical issue the project completion duration was extended to June 2019/2020. The project currently is complete.  The center will be a place where service for people abusing drugs will be rendered. Currently the facility is used as a quarantine facility for covid-19 patients.

Social Halls.

Taking into consideration the importance of public participation and social interaction between public and government entities and also non-governmental entities hence the need for social hall is paramount and thus the Mandera County Government has built through the ministry of youth gender and social have constructed 5 social halls across the county.

This has provided a platform to the community to discuss important issues in different sectors affecting the livelihood of the community at large. These social halls have been partially operationalized and highly in need of renovation. These social halls are situated at Rhamu ward, Takaba ward, Khalaliyo ward,  Banisa ward and Lafey ward.

In relation to the above two social halls were inherited from civil society, one in mandera east and the other at Elwak, both were converted to youth resource center. Only the one in Mandera is partially operationalized.

Capacity Building

The Ministry of youth, gender and social service embarked on some key activities, these are capacity building to develop entrepreneurial skills of women, youth and PWD and the purpose of this capacity building is to identify and conduct need assessment of their priority areas that they the ministry to tackle in terms of economic empowerment.