Programmes

Our programmes

Four thematic pillars, each with a defined rationale, target counties, planned activities and expected outcomes - delivered alongside three flagship projects.

Indigenous health knowledge. Community pharmacopoeia documented with free, prior and informed consent — with clinical validation, herb–drug interaction surveillance, and traditional birth attendants engaged as referral partners.

Indigenous rangeland knowledge. Dry-season reserves, critical water points and seasonal movement corridors mapped from herders’ own knowledge and used to set early-warning triggers. Indigenous fodder and browse species preferred where they perform.

Indigenous species and seed. Inventory of indigenous trees, shrubs, grasses and landraces held by communities, used to guide reseeding and reforestation. Communities own the record; nothing is patented or licensed.

NORPACRRO delivers its mandate through four thematic pillars. They are deliberately interdependent: health outreach reaches households that food security work also serves, environmental rehabilitation protects the rangeland that pastoralist livelihoods depend on, and education and enterprise work gives young people an alternative to distress migration.

Donor note: activity lists below are indicative plans. Numbers of beneficiaries, sites and budget envelopes are to be confirmed with county partners and are marked as placeholders throughout.

Health
Education & Youth
Food Security & Relief
Environment
Flagship projects

Pillar one

Health

Rationale

Pastoralist households in the North Rift live far from the nearest health facility and often move with their herds for much of the year. Distances, seasonal roads and the cost of transport combine to delay care, with the heaviest consequences for pregnant women, newborns and children under five. Outreach that travels to where households already are - at water points, livestock markets and settlements - closes part of that gap.

Target counties

West Pokot
Turkana
Baringo
Samburu
Elgeyo Marakwet
Laikipia

Planned activities

Mobile health outreach clinics, organised with county health management teams and community health promoters.
Maternal and child health support, including antenatal follow-up, immunisation promotion and nutrition screening.
Referral support covering transport and accompaniment for emergency and specialist cases.
Community health education on hygiene, nutrition and prevention of common diseases.
Support to water, sanitation and hygiene facilities at institutions serving remote settlements.

Expected outcomes

More women completing antenatal visits and delivering with a skilled attendant.
Earlier presentation of illness and reduced avoidable referrals at a late stage.
Improving nutritional status among children under five, tracked through screening data.
County health teams with a functioning outreach schedule in the most remote wards.

Implementation sequencing, budgets and beneficiary targets: [PLACEHOLDER: activity schedule and annual targets for this pillar]

Pillar two

Education & Youth Empowerment

Rationale

For households that depend on livestock, schooling competes directly with herding labour and with the household's ability to pay for uniforms, materials and transport. Girls are withdrawn first. At the same time, young people leaving school with few practical skills face limited pathways into work. Combining education support with enterprise and vocational training gives the pillar a clear route from classroom to livelihood.

Target counties

West Pokot
Samburu
Baringo
Turkana
Elgeyo Marakwet
Laikipia

Planned activities

Bursary and retention support targeted at the most vulnerable households, with priority to girls.
Distribution of learning materials and support to school feeding where it is the reason children attend.
Vocational and technical skills training linked to local trades and to county polytechnics.
Enterprise training for youth groups, integrated with the business skills flagship project.
Mentorship and life-skills sessions, including a focus on safeguarding and gender-based violence prevention.

Expected outcomes

Improved enrolment, attendance and completion, disaggregated by sex and disability.
Young people completing vocational training and entering work or self-employment.
Youth groups operating viable micro-enterprises with basic record keeping.
Stronger links between schools, county education offices and community structures.

Implementation sequencing, budgets and beneficiary targets: [PLACEHOLDER: activity schedule and annual targets for this pillar]

Pillar three

Food Security & Relief

Rationale

Drought is the defining shock in the North Rift. When pasture and water fail, livestock condition and prices collapse together: households lose their savings at the moment they most need them. Relief that protects breeding stock - rather than only meeting immediate consumption needs - reduces the length of the recovery. Food and nutrition support therefore runs alongside livestock and livelihood protection.

Target counties

Turkana
West Pokot
Baringo
Samburu
Laikipia
Elgeyo Marakwet

Planned activities

Emergency food distribution during drought and flood emergencies, coordinated with county authorities.
Livestock support including supplementary feed, water trucking and emergency livestock treatment.
Livelihood asset protection and restocking for the households hardest hit, verified with community committees.
Seed, tool and input support for agro-pastoralist households in suitable areas.
Nutrition support for children and pregnant and lactating women, linked to the health pillar.

Expected outcomes

Reduced reliance on distress sales of breeding animals during drought.
Emergency assistance reaching households within the agreed response window.
Households resuming productive activity within one season of a shock.
Improved household dietary diversity among targeted families.

Implementation sequencing, budgets and beneficiary targets: [PLACEHOLDER: activity schedule and annual targets for this pillar]

Pillar four

Environmental Conservation

Rationale

Rangeland degradation and the loss of tree cover reduce the land's ability to retain water and to recover after drought, and they push households further onto fragile areas. Demand for household fuelwood is one of the pressures on remaining vegetation, which is why the clean cooking flagship project sits inside this pillar. Protection and rehabilitation of rangeland benefits pastoralist production and conservation alike.

Target counties

Baringo
West Pokot
Samburu
Laikipia
Turkana
Elgeyo Marakwet

Planned activities

Tree growing and community woodlots, with native and fodder species suited to dryland conditions.
Rangeland rehabilitation through grazing management agreements with pastoralist associations.
Soil and water conservation structures on degraded land and along erosion-prone slopes.
Promotion of improved cookstoves and fuel-efficient cooking technologies (see flagship project).
Environmental education in schools and awareness work with community institutions.

Expected outcomes

Measurable recovery of vegetation cover in agreed rehabilitation sites.
Reduced household fuelwood consumption per household.
Grazing plans agreed and respected within participating pastoralist associations.
Community nurseries operating and supplying planting material locally.

Implementation sequencing, budgets and beneficiary targets: [PLACEHOLDER: activity schedule and annual targets for this pillar]

Flagship projects

Three flagship projects

Flagship projects are the areas where we concentrate resources, evidence and partnership. Each is designed to be replicated across the six counties once proven.

1. Clean cooking and mitigating environmental devastation

Household demand for fuelwood is a direct driver of vegetation loss across the drylands. This project promotes improved cookstoves and fuel-efficient technology, supports local production and distribution of stoves, and links the intervention to rangeland rehabilitation under the environmental pillar.

Stove technology selection with households and local fabricators.
Training and after-sales support for users and producers.
Monitoring of fuelwood savings and land pressure indicators.

[PLACEHOLDER: number of households targeted for stove adoption]

2. Fertilizer and organic farming

Working with agro-pastoralist households, this project improves soil health and yields through a combination of appropriate fertilizer use and organic practice - composting, manure management and conservation agriculture - so that farming on the margins becomes more productive and more reliable.

Demonstration plots and farmer field days.
Access to affordable inputs through group purchasing.
Composting and manure management training.

[PLACEHOLDER: hectares under improved practice and yield improvement target]

3. Business skills training

Structured enterprise training for small traders, youth and women's groups, based on the ILO Start and Improve Your Business (SIYB) methodology - the same family of approaches used in large enterprise-development programmes. Training is delivered locally and followed by mentoring and access to savings groups.

SIYB-aligned training cycles with certified trainers.
Business plan development and record-keeping support.
Post-training mentoring and linkage to finance.

[PLACEHOLDER: number of entrepreneurs trained and mentors engaged]

Fund a flagship project See how results are tracked