Mandera
County is one of the 47 counties in Kenya, located in the north eastern part
of the country and borders Ethiopia to
the North, Somalia to the East and Wajir County to the South. It is 1,100km from Nairobi. The county has a population of 1,025,756 and covers an area of 25,991.5km².
The County is subdivided into six sub counties: Mandera West, Mandera South, Banisa, Mandera
North, Mandera East, and Lafey and 30 wards.
Mandera
is characterised by low lying rocky hills located on the plains that rise gradually
from 400 meters above sea level in
the south at Elwak to 970 metres above sea level on the border
with Ethiopia. The rest of the topography is low lying, characterised by dense
vegetation with thorny shrubs. The flat terrain makes drainage very poor,
causing floods during heavy rain downpours. There are no lakes, swamps or dams but earth pans are a common.
Ecological
conditions
There are two ecological zones in the county: Arid and semi-arid. Ninety five per cent of
the county is semi-arid with dense vegetation mainly thorny shrubs and bushes
along foots of isolated hills and mathenge
trees along gullies.
Mandera
has an area of 25,991.5 km². Most of
the land is rangeland supporting livestock production. Availability of water is
the critical factor for agricultural production hence the concentration of crop
production along River Daua and other places with laggas where water collects.
Generally the soils in most parts of the county are
fertile since they have not been exploited. There are a few areas where soil
acidity does not allow for arable crop production. Forty thousand hectares is
under irrigation but only 15,000-20,000ha
has the potential to be fully exploited. The area under rain-fed agriculture is
very low considering that reliability of rainfall is below 30 per cent.
Unemployment rate in the county stands at 69 per cent. This can be attributed to
factors such as low literacy levels, limited opportunities, limited
financial credit facilities, which are Sharia compliant, non-functional
vocational training institutions, dependency on aid, and frequent
conflicts among the communities, which disrupts the normal
functioning of society.