Turkana Deputy Governor John Erus says the county government is committed to working closely with development partners to provide integrated service delivery to the refugee communities at Kakuma Camp and Kalobeyei Settlement Scheme.

Dr Erus told a delegation from the Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs that ongoing refugees resettlement programmes was a major breakthrough in building a positive host-refugee relation between the locals and the foreigners, some of whom have spent their entire life in the country.

The deputy governor said the Integrated Refugee Response Programme (IRRP) currently under review and commenced in 2023 offered two communities sharing residence of Kakuma and Kalobeyei in Turkana West.

The programme funded to the tune of $115 million through the Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Danish philanthropic foundations LEGO, Grundfos and Novo Nordisk aims to transition refugee handling from humanitarian approaches to inclusive government led models that benefits host and refugees and boosts self-reliance.

In the first two years of implementation, the IRRP programme successfully managed to lay groundwork for better service delivery in respect to water, health and vocational training for capacity enhancement.

According to the Danish team leader Kanar Salam Patruss the results of the review would be used to design the next phase of the programme scheduled to begin early next year.

• A Tell Media / KNA report / By Peter Gitonga