The 7th Sector Forum for Agriculture and Livestock meeting was held on 10th – 12th October in Garissa, bringing together 8 of the 10 CECs and one Director and the Secretariat team. The CECs reviewed the activities conducted by SFAL since its inception in April 2017, with specific strategic recommendations provided for consideration.

Bills and policy development: A lot of work is put into writing draft bills in the counties, but these bills are never finalized and don’t reach the County Assembly. Is important to follow the right procedure. A detailed guideline has been developed by the Kenya Law Reform Guideline, which all the counties need to internalize it. SFAL is interested in rangeland and livestock policies, hence all the member counties need to have these in place.

Disease control: SFAL members have developed a comprehensive common framework for disease control in the FCDC region, which outlines key areas of intervention to fix the diseases in the region.

Development of County Sector Plans: There are different understanding about County Sector plans and County Sectoral strategic plans and Counties have different plans in place. As per the law, Counties are supposed to have 10-year sector plans in place that will be revised after five years. Counties aim at putting harmonized departmental sector plans by the end of March 2019, and those that already have them will revise them to meet the current needs and realities. Further, those that have sector strategies will transform them into sector plans. By the end of 2022, all SFAL members will develop sector plans for the period 2023–2032.

Training institutes in the pastoralist areas: Livestock being the mainstay of the FCDC counties, needs to be invested in and supported. Griftu Pastoralist Training Institute situated in Wajir graduated their first batch of students this year. Unfortunately, there were only a few students from FCDC Counties and a few students in general. FCDC will support some of the students from the FCDC counties interested in studying livestock production at the college, through partial sponsorship.

Fodder production: There is huge potential for fodder production in the pastoralist counties, but not much economic analysis has been undertaken to measure its viability. Currently, SFAL is working on 3 strategies: a concept note for a fodder model farm; economic analysis related to fodder production and feeding of animals; and developing a joint strategy to promote fodder production in northern Kenya.

Coordination at the county level: Various humanitarian and development interventions are taking place at the county level, some of which the Department for Agriculture and Livestock is not aware of. The FCDC counties have formed County Sector Forums for Agriculture and Livestock, to coordinate all livestock and agriculture-related activities in the counties. Already, Garissa SFAL has been established and the other counties have committed to follow suit.

The Sector Forum for Agriculture and Livestock, SFAL, is an instrument under the FCDC to enhance cooperation, coordination and information flow between counties on issues related to agriculture and livestock. County Executive Committee Members (CECs) of the ten FCDC Counties hold regular meetings and the SFAL Secretariat implements decisions taken by the Forum.