The unveiling of the Lamu County Integrated Development Plan (CIDP) for 2018 - 2022 is a historic milestone in our county’s development pathway. It represents a strategic effort by the County Government of Lamu to drive its development agenda and spur overall economic growth. The spirit of this CIDP borrows heavily from the Country’s development blueprint - the Vision 2030, the African Union Agenda 2063, the East African Vision 2050 and it also builds on the experiences, successes and lessons learned during the implementation of the first CIDP (2013 – 2017). To maximize our county’s economic growth our Plan is aligned to take advantage of the region’s economic strategies embodied in the Vision 2030 such as the projects affiliated to the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia-Transport (LAPPSET) Corridor. The plan is also well anchored and closely linked to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Lamu County Spatial Plan as well as an other sectoral plans that exist at both the county and national level.

These investments are designed to: create high quality and well-connected places that provide Lamu residents with a most conducive environment to live, work, play and learn. The investments will also accelerate business growth by connecting existing and new enterprises to County resources for commercialization, and development of products to new and growing markets. Alongside these programs is a number of life changing flagship projects that will spur economic growth and open up employment opportunities for most of our youths. The flagship project for the county includes among others universal health care coverage for 20,000 households, digitization of all health facilities in the county, promoting food security through enhanced investment in irrigated ate agriculture and overall infrastructure development among others. Worth mentioning is the strategic location of these projects to ensure that every Ward has aspiration to look forward to within the next five years of my government.

The CIDP adopts a programme based planning approach to enhance allocation of resources to related activities with a view to accelerate the desired growth by linking specific sectoral programmes to well defined targets and outcomes for the planning period. This approach will not only provide a mechanism for assessing the effectiveness and efficiency in the allocation of financial resources but will also enable the measuring of the output and outcomes of the defined programmes/projects at the end of the implementation phase. As such, we will seek to measure “who” received “what” kind of investment, “where” it was invested and the targeted beneficiary.

With the devolved units coming to terms with their new set of responsibilities, the preparation of the CIDP occurred within the context of newly found traction and experience which allowed the county to crystallize its economic and development strategy in a more practical way. Unlike the first Plan, the CIDP 2018 - 2022 was creatively developed with significant input by our own technical teams with support from external consultants. This in itself is an indicator of progress and developed human resource capacity.

The County Government of Lamu takes cognizance of the fact that economic development requires strong partnership with other players in order to make significant impact As such in order to determine our ultimate success, we will need to build a strong framework that integrates the public-private-Non-profit sectors. In this framework, the public sector will focus on creating an enabling environment for economic growth and filling market gaps with programs for the general welfare of its citizens. The private sector on the other hand will create economic value that supports job creation while the Non-profit sector will create knowledge and provide resources thus creating social value.

Last but not least, I thank the people of Lamu, our development partners, technical teams and the elected leaders whose inputs made this Plan a reality.

Fahim Yassin Twaha
Governor, Lamu County