Marsabit, March 2023 – The Foresight4Food FoSTr team recently visited Kenya to facilitate a successful multi-stakeholder workshop that supported the co-creation of the new ‘Sustainably Unlocking the Economic Potential of Lake Turkana’ programme.
Together with the World Food Programme and the World Food Programme Innovation team, The FoSTr team held a highly interactive and productive three-day workshop. On the first day, the workshop focused on contextual understanding of the Lake Turkana food system as well as the Marsabit county livelihoods, using the Rich Picture mapping exercise. On the second day, the groups presented their deep knowledge of the context to each other and elaborated on this. Workshop participants tackled key trends shaping the food and livelihoods system: groups discussed how various themes (water levels, fish stocks to income sources, conflict, and education) changed over time and what they expect to happen 10 years into the future.
On the last day of the workshop, participants explored a common vision for the future, and how the food system is currently working. This led stakeholders to have a first try at exploring what is needed to change that system toward the common vision.
These fruitful discussions over the three days enabled participants to think about what might happen to the Marsabit food system in the years to come, and what factors would influence these changes. Hence 5 scenarios were created for the future regarding the fisheries sector and supporting livelihoods, as well as an in-depth discussion on key entry points for intervention in the system. Different stakeholders participating in the workshop had different opinions on the likelihood of certain scenarios emerging. Some imagined the situation worsening, while a few viewed the future more positively.
The insights gathered through the multi-stakeholder forum are expected to not only support the inception phase of the programme but also will support multi-stakeholder engagement throughout the programme.
The Foresight4Food FoSTr team will continue to support the World Food Programme team in realizing the ‘Sustainably Unlocking the Economic Potential of Lake Turkana’ programme inception phase. A follow-up workshop will take place in Turkana County from March 25 to 28, with stakeholders from that side of Lake Turkana.