By: Emily Mikwa
The County Directorate of Fisheries organized a two -day workshop to sharpen the skills of all the field Officers under fisheries directorate on how to narrow the gaps identified during the Monitoring and Evaluation Mission in Kisumu.
Some of the gaps identified were lack of: consolidated data on production / stocking, data not correlating to log frame and ABDP at 3 data, hard copy for data set, consistency – data to tally at all data sets, data from farmers which have a verification method in place for all data received from the field and easily retrievable data.
The workshop held at Golf Hotel in Kakamega County, focused on the following objectives: understanding key concepts of Result based management and reporting, reviewing the county program log frame and setting targets in a participatory manner, and reviewing templates for result-based reporting as outlined by the County Project Coordinator, Mr. Kenneth Luga.
Mr. Luga implored on the participants to grasp the result-based management and reporting, actively participate in the review of the log frame and target setting and actively review the templates as the only way to narrow the glaring gaps moving forward.
Speaking during the session, the Chief Officer, Madam Rosemary Raluoch thanked the participants for their support of the program, noting the accolades from the headquarter offices in Nyeri towards the good progress that Kisumu is making. With special commendation to the fisheries officers in Nyakach for the impressive work noted.
The Chief Officer challenged the staff to cultivate the passion of impacting peoples’ lives positively as they discharge their roles. She added that ADBP should not just come and go but implored on them to give it a life even after the project period ends.
Taking cognizance on the good feedback being received from Nyeri, she however called on them to improve on data collection, information documentation and proper filing such that the same information at the sub county should be similar to that at the County headquarters.
The County Director for Fisheries, Madam Susan Claire on her part stated that the workshop has been convened following the gaps identified during the monitoring and evaluation mission and called on the officers to work towards narrow the gaps.
She outlined some of the gaps, which included reporting, production data, knowing the log frame and having a well-structured communication channel.
The Director also stated that the directorate is currently working on bi laws that would bring sanity on the daily operations of the BMUs along the beaches in Kisumu. Some of the laws include: objectives of the BMUs as outlined in the Act 2016, area of jurisdiction, membership eligibility among other roles. sentiments highlighted by madam Joyce Owara, a senior officer in the directorate of fisheries.
She also emphasized the need to introduce an asset register and acquisition of title deeds at the beaches so that when there is change of office, the register should be handed over to the incoming office bearers as this would ensure seamless transition without loss of information or assets.
Mr. Kevin Wamira, the PFO in his presentation unpacked the concept of result-based management by explaining all the stages of the project and the targets required to be met by the field officers. Some of which included tools used, selecting performance indicators, performance reporting and indicators. He also took the participants through review of sub county monthly, quarterly and semi-annual reports.
On his part, Mr. Collins Otieno, the PFT took the field officers through he ABDP log frame, the cascaded logical framework review and completion in reference to targets, results and cumulative. He also carried out a demonstration on mobile based tools for data collection and submission.
The County Project Coordinator, Mr. Kenneth Luga expounded on the revised results-based reporting templates such as the monthly/ quarterly reports, production/stocking template, groups reporting and in-kind contribution template.
He further outlined some of the resolutions made as a way forward such as: each field officer is expected to collect data from fish farmers a minimum of 7 fish farmer per day, data collection on in kind from farmers to be done on monthly basis, collect data from individual farmers, polish data on SAGs, field officers to share their monthly work plan on field activities, farmers o be paid via M -Pesa and staff through bank accounts.
