Turkana County is blessed with natural resources in solar and wind, oil and gas, water aquifers, various mineral deposits, lakes and rivers just to name but a few. A huge chunk of these resources have not been exploited and even where exploitation has happened, the meaningful involvement of local communities especially youth and women empowerment has been, hitherto, limited. We seek to protect and conserve our natural resources in the following ways:

a)  Advocating for Community Rights in Oil and Gas b) Sustainable Water Resource Management

c)  Training of Water Resource User Associations (WRUAs)

d) Organizing   Climate  Summits,   Climate  Strikes,   Climathons,   to   Create Awareness on Climate Change and its link with Natural Resources and the need for Sustainable Management.

e) Tree Planting and Environmental Conservation Programmes. Incentives for pupils, students and community members that best perform.

Climate change in recent years has resulted in a growing trend of very harsh and extreme weather events in Turkana. Extreme temperatures, evasive rain and destructive floods now characterize the once green Turkana environment. In addition to the climate factors, rapid land use changes, rural to urban migration, fast development of the major towns in Turkana as a result of devolution and oil and gas have accelerated the existing trends. Population growth and the growing demand for water and food makes the climate crisis a real threat for

hundreds of thousands of local community members in Turkana and their livestock.

Article 43 intends to enhance youth participation in Natural Resource Management. Through our Youth for Good Governance in Kenya’s Oil Sector program, we aim at engendering youth-led strategies for strengthening good governance and sustainable development in Kenya’s budding oil economy. We intend to achieve this by building capacities of our youth and women to participate actively in the oil economy in Turkana, by increasing opportunities for youth to contribute to achieving environmentally sound good governance at the local level, and by creating a network of youth who contribute to ensuring that Kenya’s oil remains a booster to county and national development rather than a source of conflict as is already emerging.

We target youth and women generally, members of local youth groups, as well as county government authorities, traditional leaders, industry representatives and civil society structures in the regions immediately surrounding the onshore oil exploration activities in Turkana.

Our strategy will involve hosting a series of training workshops focusing on the role of youth in oil governance. The workshops will equip the youth and women, a traditionally underserved and marginalized group, with the necessary skills to effectively engage themselves in local governance issues in Natural Resource Management. Through these workshops, local youth will develop sub-county- level action plans which will form the basis of their advocacy action in their respective communities. Using the mediums of community radio, local youth forums, dialogue with local authorities, school based outreach and the creation

of Turkana Youth Platform on Oil and Gas, the youth participants will amplify their voices, affirm their role as key actors in the oil economy, make policy input, galvanize youth action for the environment, and built partnerships with industry players.