Farmers in Masinga sub-county have been urged to help in implementing the Ukambani Water Conservation Pilot Project (UWCPP) for natural resources in the region so as to help in achieving its key goals.
Speaking during the closure of two-day annual review workshop for UWCPP, the Machakos county Project Coordinator John Gacheru said that although a lot of efforts had been put in place to ensure they had achieved, their key goal of alleviating poverty, community participation was needed.
UWCPP is implemented in all the area water sources including the Masinga Dam.
The workshop review showed that the project had tried to widen its coverage through four-component namely environment conservation, water resource management, rural livelihoods and community empowerment and was with the help of various ministries.
Deforestation, poor farming methods, conservation of rainwater, landlessness, over exploitation of natural resources are some of the issues that the UWCPP has dealt with for the past seven years that the project has been in existence with some notable achievements, with completions of some of their projects along the water sources basins.
Monitoring and Evaluation officer Paul Kariuki said that so far the forum has helped the community in improving their farm produce, planting of trees, improvement of breed through interbreeding, training of water rural users among other rehabilitation.
He however called for women empowerment in implementing the project for they were adversely affected by poverty.
The overall goal of the project is to reduce poverty through improved food security and levels of farmers especially among women living in rural areas.