County Overview
West Pokot County is one of the 14 Counties in the rift valley region covering an area of approximately 9,123.3 Km2, with headquarters located at Kapenguria. The County is made up of six sub counties, four constituencies, twenty wards and one hundred and three villages. The county population is projected at 661,258 persons in 2022 of which 49.4 percent is male and 50.5 percent is female. Youth population accounts for 26.3 percent while persons with disability population stands at 1.49 percent.
West Pokot County is situated in the North Rift bordering Uganda to the East. The county also borders Turkana County to the North and North East, Trans Nzoia County to the South, Elgeyo Marakwet County and Baringo County to the South East and East respectively. The County lies within Longitudes 34° 47’and 35° 49’ East and Latitude 1° and 2° North and covers an area of approximately 9,123.3 km2, stretching 132 km from North to South. The county has six (6) sub counties namely; West Pokot, Pokot north, Pokot south, Pokot central, Kipkomo and Kacheliba Sub-Counties which are further sub- divided into 20 wards with 16 divisions, 70 locations, and 226 sub-locations. Pokot North sub county covers the largest mass area with an approximate land area size of 2,782 Km2, whereas Kipkomo sub county is the smallest with approximate land area size of 765.6 Km2. The administrative units play key role in effective coordination for development activities.
The county has a total of 176 health facilities as per Kenya Master Health facility in August 2023. This includes: 142 Public, 17 Private,2 NGOs and 15 Faith-based. The current average distance to the nearest health facility is about 25 Kilometre making the health services in the county inaccessible to majority of the population. Existing facilities also lack basic health amenities such as medicine, medical supplies, qualified personnel, and enough inpatient wards for the sick. The County has the second-highest Total Fertility Rate (TFR) in the country. It stands at 6.9 births as compared with the national estimate of 3.4 births per woman. However, the contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR any method) increased from 14.2% as per KDHS 2014 to 23.5% according to KDHS 2022.
The population of the county in the 2019 census was 621,241 comprising of 307,013 males, 314,213 females and 15 Inter Sex, with a sex ratio (No. of Males per 100 Females) of 97.7. According to KPHC 2019, West Pokot sub-county has the highest projected population of 196,327 persons followed by Pokot Central with 126,682 persons in 2022, whereas Kacheliba sub-county has the least population with 65,867 persons. The population distribution is greatly influenced by the economic potential of a sub county. While the population density stands at 68 people per square Kilometer, in 2019 to an estimate of 72 people per square kilometer in 2022. It is projected population density to increase to 77 and 81 in 2025 and 2027 respectively. The numbers of households are 116,182 with an average household size of 5.3. The current year county population estimate for year 2025 stands at 805,480 with male and female is 51.0% and 49.0 % respectively, of the entire county population, 18.7% under five years and 51.9 % under fifteen years of age. Women of reproductive age (15 – 49 years) constitute 21.4% (172,558) of the population, 17.8% the population is comprised of age between 15 and 24 years, 30.2 % are of age between 25 and 59 years while 4.7% are over 60 years of age. Children under 1 year of age represents 4.24% while proportion for pregnant women stands at 4.5%.The County population is youthful as 82% of the population is aged below 35 years.