Water Resource Monitoring, Data Management, and Catchment Management Strategy Development

The Kenya water sector is under radical reform that is driven by its national policy on water resources management and development and its strategies on water resources management and water services. These policies and strategies are backed up by a new Water Act of 2002 and a draft Zero Investment Plan. The main thrust of the reforms and the ongoing Sector Wide Approach to Planning is to separate water resources management, water services delivery and sector funding and to focus the role of Ministry of Water and Irrigation (MWI) on policy. Detailed regulations are left to a number of parastatal bodies that report to boards representing different stakeholder interests. The co-operation programme between Kenya, Sweden and Denmark comprises support to 3 components: 1) Rural Water Supply and Sanitation (RWSS), 2) Water Resources Management (WRM), and 3) Water Sector Reform (WSR).

The most important new institutions in the water sector are the following: Water Services Regulatory Board (WSRB), Water Resources Management Authority (WRMA), Water Services Trust Fund (WSTF), Water Appeal Board (WAB) and the Water Service Boards (WSBs). Responsibility of the WRMA is: to regulate water allocation, source protection and conservation, water quality management, pollution control and international waters.

This assignment comprised of four major areas of support with capacity building of the WRMA staff at national and regional level and focused on: starting the process of rehabilitation / upgrading of the monitoring stations; upgrading the tools for data management and modelling, including the establishing a common Water Resources Database to be used at national, regional and sub-regional level; assisting the WRMA in improving the institutional capacity for interpretation and analysis of monitoring data; and preparation of Catchment Management Strategies in each of the 6 regions.