Turkana County Officials Trained to Formally Include Refugees in Local Government Planning
Lokichar, 27 May 2026
Turkana County, home to one of the world’s largest refugee settlements, has taken a significant step by training local government officials to formally integrate refugee affairs into county planning and policy.
A Training with Real-World Stakes
On 27 May 2026, heads of departments from the Turkana County Executive, County Assembly, and Municipalities completed a two-day training workshop held in Lokichar, focused specifically on governance and refugee integration [1]. The training was facilitated by VNG International under the Sustainable Development through Improved Local Governance (SDLG) Programme [1]. For the tens of thousands of refugees living in Kakuma and Kalobeyei, this is not an abstract bureaucratic exercise — it is a direct signal that the county government intends to make refugee affairs a formal part of how local services are planned, funded, and delivered [1].
What Officials Actually Learned
Lead trainer Dr. Samson Logiel, described as a governance expert, made clear that the workshop covered far more than financial management [1]. Speaking at the event, Dr. Logiel explained that the presentations addressed accountability, compliance, and public policy issues that affect service delivery specifically in the context of host-refugee integration [1]. This breadth of content matters: refugees in Turkana do not only need funding directed their way — they need county officials who understand the legal, procedural, and policy frameworks that govern how services can be extended to non-citizen populations [GPT]. The training content was also tailored to improve coordination and policy implementation across departments [1].
The County Assembly’s Expanded Mandate
Perhaps the most concrete structural development to emerge from this training relates to the Turkana County Assembly. Wilson Ikamar, Deputy Director for Human Resource at the County Assembly, confirmed that the assembly’s standing orders have recently been amended to include refugee affairs under its committee structure [1]. This is a significant institutional change: it means that refugee integration is no longer an informal consideration but a formal legislative responsibility [1]. Ikamar described the training as timely precisely because of this expanded mandate, noting that the technical team supporting Members of the County Assembly (MCAs) on procedural matters had gained significant knowledge that would allow them to better support the assembly’s core functions of legislation, representation, and oversight [1].
Turkana’s Scale Makes Integration Urgent
To understand why this training carries such weight, the scale of Turkana County must be appreciated. It is Kenya’s second largest county, covering approximately 77,000 square kilometres, and sits in the North-Western corner of the country [1]. Within its borders lie the Kakuma refugee camp and the Kalobeyei Integrated Settlement — together forming one of the largest refugee hosting areas in the world [1][GPT]. The communities living there — both refugees and Kenyan host community members — depend on county-level government for access to services ranging from health and education to land use decisions and livelihood programmes [GPT]. When county officials lack the governance capacity to plan responsively for this dual population, both groups suffer the consequences [GPT].
Partners Urged to Follow Suit
Omar Yusuf, Director of the Governor’s Press, described the training as an eye-opener on refugee-responsive planning and publicly urged more development partners to follow VNG International’s example by rolling out similar capacity-building programmes [1]. VNG International’s own programme manager for the SDLG Programme, Isaiah Ekai, framed the workshop as one in a series of capacity-building efforts rather than a standalone event [1]. Ekai stated that continuous capacity building helps county staff gain confidence in executing their mandate — an acknowledgement that one training session, however substantive, is the beginning of a longer process rather than its conclusion [1]. For refugees in Kakuma and Kalobeyei, that longer process is precisely what will determine whether the commitments made in Lokichar translate into tangible improvements in services, security, and opportunities in the months ahead [alert! ‘No specific timeline for follow-up actions or next training sessions has been confirmed in the source material’].