Wajir District Livestock Marketing Council (DLMC) is one of the regional branches of the Kenya Livestock Marketing Council (KLMC), which promotes trade and marketing of livestock and is a partner in the USAID-funded Kenya Drylands Livestock Development Program (KDLDP).

Wajir DLMC received support and training on governance, leadership, lobbying and advocacy through the USAID-funded Farmer-to-Farmer program, implemented by CNFA. The Farmer-to-Farmer program recruits volunteer experts from the US to travel to developing regions and train business owners and farmers to expand their enterprises. Wajir DLMC’s eight day training helped the organization become proactive and empowered pastoralists to participate in policy discussions which would encourage policy makers to address issues that affect herders.

In June, DLMC Wajir received complaints from its members, including producers and traders, that selling of livestock at the Wajir Livestock Market has been negatively affected by an arbitrary and unilateral increase in taxes by the Wajir County Council and that the market has been deserted. This disrupted the system as pastoralists were forced to sell their livestock outside the market at less competitive prices. Since herders were informed that the market has been closed, they stopped taking their livestock to the market for one week. This loss was devastating to the pastoralist’s incomes and food security.

The DLMC took the following steps to ameliorate the herder’s concerns:

• Organized a stakeholders meeting to build consensus on suspension of the tax increment.
• Facilitated radio interviews with herders and traders to air their concerns and requested the reversal of the tax; explaining that herders need drought mitigating measures versus additional taxes on their already vulnerable households.
• DLMC Wajir directly lobbied and petitioned the Wajir County Council through a memorandum requesting that the tax be withdrawn.

After two weeks, the council formally withdrew the tax increment and thereafter the Wajir Livestock Market normalized.  Pastoralists are now selling their livestock at competitive prices at the market.