Samburu County
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SAMBURU COUNTY DISASTER EARLY WARNING COMMUNICATION STRATEGY 2021 2 The County Government of Baringo Table of Contents Executive Summary ............................................................................................................... 6 Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................. 7 Abbreviations and Acronyms .............................................................................................. 8 Map of Samburu County ...................................................................................................... 9 1.0 Background ....................................................................................................................... 10 1.1 Context of Samburu County ........................................................................................ 10 1.2 Samburu County DRM policies, Structural Dynamics and Linkages ................. 11 1.2.1 Samburu County DRM Mandate and Operations ................................................... 12 2.0 Situation Analysis ........................................................................................................... 14 2.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 14 2.1.1 Common Disasters and Challenges .......................................................................... 14 2.1.2 Other early warning activities in the county ............................................................ 16 2.1.3 Current state of early warning information .............................................................. 18 2.1.3.1 Communication of EW information ........................................................................ 18 2.1.3.2 Barriers to Early Warning Communication ........................................................... 22 2.2 Recommendations .......................................................................................................... 22 2.3 SWOT Matrix and SWOT Analysis ............................................................................. 23 3.0 Objectives of the Strategy .............................................................................................. 28 3.1 Rationale for the Strategy .............................................................................................. 28 3.2 Internal Communication Plan ...................................................................................... 28 3.2.1 Internal Communication Goals and Objectives ........................................................ 28 3.2.2 Internal Communication Policy and Principles ...................................................... 29 3.2.3 Internal Communication Audiences .......................................................................... 30 3.2.4 Key messages ................................................................................................................. 30 3.2.5 Tools and Tactics ........................................................................................................... 30 4.0 External Communication Plan ....................................................................................... 32 4.1 Goal and Objectives of external communication ..................................................... 32 4.2 Guiding Principles for External Communication .................................................... 32 4.3 External communication Audiences ............................................................................ 33 4.4 Communication Tools and Tactics .............................................................................. 33 4.4.1 Media Relations and Engagement .............................................................................. 33 4.4.2 Crisis Communication.................................................................................................. 34 4.4.3 Community Mobilization ............................................................................................ 35 4.4.4 Digital Media Engagement .......................................................................................... 37 4.4.5 Stakeholders’ Relations ................................................................................................ 37 4.4.6 Communication Channels and Tools ......................................................................... 38 Disaster Early Warning Communication Strategy 3 5.0 Internal and External Communication Matrix ........................................................... 40 6.0 Implementation plan ....................................................................................................... 45 7.0 Monitoring and Evaluation ............................................................................................ 45 4 The County Government of Baringo List of Tables Table 1: Types and sources of EW info ............................................................................ 18 Table 2: Community-based channels of communication .............................................. 20 Table 3: County personnel and organisations of influence .......................................... 21 Table 4: SWOT Matrix .......................................................................................................... 27 Table 5: Communication Channels and Tools ................................................................ 38 Table 6: Internal Communication Matrix ......................................................................... 41 Table 7: External Communication Matrix ........................................................................ 43 Disaster Early Warning Communication Strategy 5 List of Figures Figure 1: Map of Samburu County .................................................................................... 9 Figure 2: Popularity of Radio Stations for Early Warning Communication ............. 19 Figure 3: Use of mobile phones .......................................................................................... 19 6 The County Government of Baringo Executive Summary This document outlines mechanisms for enhancing the role of communication (as a strategic function) in actualizing the early warning mandate of Samburu County. The strategy is to serve as a tool that will aid the creation of knowledge and awareness of Samburu County’s efforts and enhance the efficacy of communication with stakeholders and the general public. In addition, the strategy aims to strengthen and improve coordination within the county, as well as with inter-organizational linkages within regional, national and local networks. Specifically, it is intended to make Samburu County’s communications operations more robust and more adaptable to adequately support the implementation of the County Integrated Development Plan 2018 -2022 and beyond. The communication strategy framework requires Samburu County to expand its networks by embracing new institutions that reflect its geographic and thematic breadth of focus as well as its multidisciplinary approach in disaster prevention, mitigation and response. It also requires the county to leverage proactive communication engagements and partnerships. In addition, it emphasizes on high-level decision-making and policy making support to line departments and therefore increased engagement with high-level decision makers within the county. Accordingly, the Communications Strategy will better position Samburu County to respond to these demands. The strategy has taken into account the Samburu CIDP; the County DRM Policy, the County Risk Profile among other county documents - to ensure that it is well-aligned with and contributes to the communication goals of the county. Section one of the strategy provides the background information on Samburu county, articulating the geographical placement and corresponding conditions, the DRM policies, structural dynamics, and linkages, and the county’s DRM mandate and operations. This underscores an in-depth understanding of the county to enable an accurate analysis of its communicative needs. Section two highlights the situation analysis undertaken during the communication audit, presents a SWOT analysis and SWOT matrix, informs the core objectives of the strategy, its scope and limitations then gives a professional rationale for strategy. Sections three and four provide specific mechanisms for enhancing the internal and external communication needs of Samburu County respectively. The guiding principles, goals and objectives, key messages, tools and tactics for both the internal and external communications are discussed in these two sections. The implementation plan and the monitoring and evaluation sections conclude the document. Disaster Early Warning Communication Strategy 7 Acknowledgments The development of this Disaster Early Warning Communication Strategy was done with support from the Strengthening Disaster Risk Reduction project through funding from United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID’s), Office of United States Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA). We wish to thank the project implementer; Kenya Red Cross Society for the hard work and the coordination towards the development of the strategy. Additionally, we are grateful for the support accorded by communication experts from Namu Communications. Also, we acknowledge the contribution from Samburu County Government officials from various ministries and other county stakeholders including community