Uasin Gishu Civil Society Organizations, in partnership with local groups, has handed over the Gender and Community Development Policy 2025 to county leaders, describing it as a “historic milestone.”
The officially unveiled landmark policy is aimed at tackling long-standing gender inequalities as it has been designed to close gender gaps in leadership, health, and economic empowerment.
The policy was presented to County Executive Committee Member for Youth, Sports, and Gender, Lucy Nge’ondo and Patrick Kimeli, Chairperson of the County Assembly Gender Committee.
According to the policy, Women hold less than 10 percent of senior leadership roles, compared to a national average of 22 percent.
Only 18 percent of land titles belong to women, falling below the national figure of 26 percent. And when it comes to health, just 59 percent of births are attended by skilled personnel lower than the national average.
In 2023 alone, the county recorded over 1,200 cases of gender-based violence, though many more go unreported.
REPRODRIVE Programme Manager, Ian Kigen Kisorio revealed that the policy is anchored on five strategic pillars: ending violence against women, boosting women’s leadership, socio-economic empowerment, male engagement, and promoting peace and security.
“When you look at the Uasin Gishu Gender and Community Development Policy 2025, it talks about five key areas from ending violence against women to the current issue of engaging men and boys in this conversation to women, peace and security and talking about economic empowerment,” he noted.
“So it cuts across all emerging areas that we see in this current situation that we are in. We have had many challenges in our environment as Uasin Gishu County and this policy, we hope, is going to be now the beginning of the mitigation process,” added Kisorio.
Civil society leaders say the approach is community-driven, reflecting the voices of women, men, and youth across Uasin Gishu.
“It will be able to solve many issues such as gender, women fighting, men fighting, it will be able to solve all of them,” said Ken Ruto, CEO North Rift Theater Ambassadors (NORTA).
Kerio Rights Organization Programmes Coordinator, Fred Siele, emphasized the policy on climate action which he said is a new area that affects women a lot.
Uasin Gishu County CECM, Education, Culture, Gender and Social Protection, Eng. Lucy Ng’endo assured the stakeholders that they will ensure the policy goes through the whole process of cabinet approval and also county assembly as she called upon partners to continue ensuring that they walk the journey together in terms of resource mobilization.
On his part, the Chairman Labour, Gender and Social Protection Committee, Uasin Gishu County Assembly, Patrick Kimeli underscored the need to ensure there is an allocation budget to ensure the policy is effectively implemented.
“We have an allocation for that to make sure this policy is implemented and we will make sure also we follow up on the same, do what we call capacity building with our community so that the people understand all information of the nitty-gritties in the policy so that after they understand and we fund, they get involved on the same,” said Kimeli.
The county now joins Makueni and Kisumu, which have successfully enacted similar policies, boosting women’s access to county funds, procurement opportunities, and stronger GBV response systems.
The real test now lies in financing, political commitment, and community participation.
Stakeholders now say if Uasin Gishu stays on course, it could soon emerge as a model county for inclusive governance.
By Ekuwam Sylvester
