REMARKS BY PROFESSOR MURUNGARU KIMANI, DIRECTOR, PSRI
DURING THE OFFICAL OPENING OF THE INTEGRATION WORKSHOP
ON MONDAY 24TH NOVEMBER 2014
Mr. George Gichamu, Director, Technical Services, NCPD,
Madam Gift Malunga, Deputy Representative, UNFPA Kenya Country
Office
The course coordinator, Mr. Ben Jarabi,
Members of the coordination team,
Staff
Participants,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
On behalf of the Population Studies and Research Institute (PSRI) of the
College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS), and the University of
Nairobi, I wish to welcome you all to this workshop on integrating
population variables into development planning. This is the third
workshop that PSRI is conducting focusing on integration, and as many
of you are aware, it falls within the third mandate of PSRI which is to
provide technical backstopping on population issues to Government,
NGO including UN agencies. The other two mandates, for which PSRI is
well known, are training and research on population.
Ladies
and
development
gentlemen
planning
the
is
issue
of
increasingly
integrating
being
population
recognized
into
because
population and development are interrelated. This relationship however
is complex and given that integrating population is equally complex, it is
inevitable that we are yet to achieve full integration. This undesired
situation has occurred partly due to lack of the requisite skills to
undertake the integration. The relevance of this workshop therefore,
cannot be overemphasized. I would urge all of you therefore to ensure
that by the conclusion of the workshop, you are better equipped to
handle the task of integration.
I believe that the facilitators, on their part will demystify this process by
giving simple and practical examples that demonstrate this process. On
the other hand, I urge your active participation, ensuring that you
engage the facilitators to clarify concepts that are not clear, interact with
other participants, and refer to the relevant materials provided.
Ladies and gentlemen besides the issue of skills which as noted above
can be a handicap to the integration process, I would like to share three
other aspects which are equally relevant. I would like to start with
coordination. I think it is important to coordinate the integration process
and more so, both in the same institutions and across different
institutions, in order to strengthen the integration process. For example,
the NCPD should coordinate more with the Kenya Vision 2030
secretariat; in order to ensure that population growth targets are
consistent with the economic growth targets and the per capita targets.
Similarly while still using the example of NCPD, it would be important for
NCPD to liaise with DFH to ensure that the demographic targets are
translated into services, in terms of commodities.
The second issue relates to the allocation of resources to attain
integration. If we refer to the example of commodities raised above, then
we note that in order to acquire commodities, one must have adequate
resources. At times, due to other considerations this does not happen.
The
third
issue
is
that
integration
is
constrained
by
political
considerations which influence the diversion of resources to non-priority
projects, for instance, in the construction of schools and health facilities
where they are not a priority. It is important therefore that as population
researchers are discussing integration, they take cognizance of these
additional challenges.
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As I conclude my remarks, I wish to appreciate our partners UNFPA and
NCPD, who are represented in this session. UNFPA has been funding the
previous and the current workshops on integration; Madam Deputy
Representative, please convey our gratitude to the Office of the
Representative. The NCPD, on the other hand, has been playing the role
of coordination, particularly that of identifying the participants , indeed
we have worked closely with them, and we also appreciate their role and
similarly I wish to request the NCPD representative to
convey our
gratitude to the office of the Director-General of NCPD.
Finally, I request all participants to find time to visit PSRI to learn more
about our programme. We have started a PhD in course work and an MA
in monitoring and evaluation, which you may be interested in pursuing.
It is now my pleasure to welcome Madam Gift Malunga, the Deputy
Representative, UNFPA, to make her remarks.
Madam Gift welcome.
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