Garissa County is a

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...

located in Eastern Kenya bordering

Somalia Somalia, officially the Federal Republic of Somalia, is the easternmost country in continental Africa. The country is located in the Horn of Africa and is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, th ...

to the East, Wajir County and Isiolo County to the North, Tana River County to the West,

Lamu County Lamu County is a county in Kenya located along the North Coast of the country and is one of the six Coastal Counties in Kenya. Its capital is the town of Lamu. It borders Tana River County to the southwest, Garissa County to the north, Som ...

to the South and the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest urban area is Garissa. The county was created by the 2010

Constitution of Kenya The Constitution of Kenya is the supreme law of the Republic of Kenya. There have been three significant versions of the constitution, with the most recent redraft being enabled in 2010. The constitution was presented to the Attorney General ...

as a new unit of the

devolved government Devolution is the statutory delegation of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to govern at a subnational level, such as a regional or local level. It is a form of administrative decentralization. Devolved territories ...

. Prior to the 2010 constitution, Garissa County was part of the North Eastern Province which was one of the former provinces of Kenya. The North Eastern Province was carved out of the then Northern Frontier District (NFD) prior to

independence Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or state, in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the status of ...

. The county had a population of 800,000 at the 2019 Census, and a land area of about . The majority of the population in Garissa County is of Somali ethnic background. This includes subgroups like the Ogaden, Degodia, Ajuran, and others. There are also smaller populations of other ethnic groups.

Administrative and political units

Political leadership

Nathif Jama Adam was elected as the pioneer governor of Garissa in March

2013 2013 was the first year since 1987 to contain four unique digits (a span of 26 years). 2013 was designated as: *International Year of Water Cooperation *International Year of Quinoa Events January * January 5 – 2013 Craig, Alask ...

. Ali Bunow Korane became the second governor in

2017 2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly. Events January * January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...

however Nathif was re-elected in

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

. Nathif is currently deputised by Abdi Dagane Muhumed. The current elected

Senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or Legislative chamber, chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the Ancient Rome, ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior ...

of the county is Sen. Abdul Mohammed Haji while the current County woman representative is Hon. Amina Udgoon Siyad.

County Executive Committee (CEC)

Every County Government in Kenya has a County Executive Committee (CEC) who are persons the Governor appoints, with the approval of the assembly. The CEC implements and coordinates the development projects of the County. The committee also implements the laws the County Assembly passes and ensures compliance from the various county departments. Below is a list of the current CECs of Garissa County:

Administrative units

Garissa County has 6

constituencies An electoral (congressional, legislative, etc.) district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provi ...

. The below is the list of all Constituencies and the current elected Member of Parliament (MP) for each constituency:

Electoral Wards

Garissa County is further subdivided into 30 electoral wards. Each ward is represented by a Member of the County Assembly (MCA) or also known as Ward Representative whose main roles are legislation, representation, and oversight. The current speaker of the County Assembly is Abdi Idle Gure. The list below shows all the wards of the county and the current elected MCA for each Ward:

Demographics

Garissa county had a total population of 841,353 persons of which 458,975 were males, 382,344 females and 34 intersex person. There was a total of 141,394 household with an average size of 5.9 persons per house hold. It has a population density of 19 persons per square kilometre based on the 2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census. Distribution of Population, Land Area and Population Density by Sub-County Source

Religion & Ethnicity

Most of the inhabitants of Garissa County are ethnically Somali and are predominantly

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

Education

The county has 347 ECD centres, 224 primary schools, 41 secondary schools, 2 teachers training colleges and 2 public universities. 39.7 per cent of the population can read and write and 57.9 cannot read and write. There is an average of 8.2 per cent literacy level and 74 per cent are illiterate. Source

Health

There are a total of 111 health facilities distributes across the county, one level 5, 14 other hospitals, 29 health centres and 67 dispensaries. Source HIV/ADS is at the 1 percentage as compared to the national prevalent rate of 5.6 percentage.

Transport and communication

A total of 2,700.6 km is classified as road network coverage comprising 1,637.84 km under county government and 1,062.76 km under national government. Of the total road network 420 km is covered by gravelled surface, 2,245.1 km earth surface and .5 km of bitumen surface. There are 6 postal services with 2,600 installed letter boxes, 2,496 rented letter boxes, and 104 vacant letter boxes.

Trade and commerce

The main crops grown are maize, greengrams, sorghum, rice, cowpeas, bananas, mangoes, pawpaw, water melon, tomatoes, capsicum and onions. Farmers have an average size of 1.5 hectares for small scale and 20 hectares for large scale. cattle (boran), goats (galla), sheep (black headed Persian) and camel (dromedary one humped) are kept as the main livestock for producing key products of meat, milk, hides and skins.