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ALM Case Study 2010 - Kenya-Adaptation to Climate Change in Arid Lands (KACCAL)
Summary:
Kenya’s geographic location makes it inherently prone to cyclical droughts and floods. Moreover, according to the Initial National Communication (INC), such types of cyclical climate-driven events will increase in intensity and frequency due to global climate change. Livelihoods and economic activities in Kenya’s are highly vulnerable to climatic fluctuations, with the districts of the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs) being among the most vulnerable to recurrent droughts, and to long-term climate change. The rural poor are the most vulnerable to the impacts of Kenya’s current climate variability. In response this project is supporting the people of Kenya, particularly the poor and vulnerable communities in the selected districts of the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs) to enhance their adaptive capacity to drought (and flood). Working in the pilot areas, this is being achieved through enhanced access to and management of water for irrigation, promotion of indigenous crops that more resilient to anticipated climate (and improved access to markets for these crops), and promoting livestock varieties that are more suited to the climate, development and promotion of alternative livelihood opportunities (such as beekeeping activities). Additionally the project is strengthening climate risks management skills of extension workers whose role is to support household and community based projects, and improving the flow and use of early warning and seasonal forecast information in community practices.
Adaptation Experience:
With the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) piloting the project in one district (Mwingi District), and the World Bank (WB) piloting in another three districts, the combined KACCAL activities total four districts. The joint UNDP-WB KACCAL project builds on the Arid Lands Resource Management Project (ALRMP II) project, a long standing Government program for rural development in the ASALs, which has been successful in reaching marginalized communities and in establishing sound implementation systems for drought risk management. ALRMP originally started as an emergency drought recovery operation in 1994 (Emergency Drought Recovery Project). It was realized that a longer term program aimed at building a drought management system as well as community capacity to cope with drought was needed. ALRMP now covers a total of 28 arid and semiarid districts and has strengthened its focus on natural resource management. ALRMP’s strengths include a sound decentralized institutional structure, and effective coordination mechanisms at the national, district and community level which have resulted in an effective multi-sectoral approach to development. The ALRMP provides a very effective delivery mechanism for increasing the adaptive capacity of the most vulnerable segments of the population.
Results and Learning:
Key lessons learned:
- Merge disaster risk management and climate change: At the governance and institutional level, the project focuses on strengthening the link between disaster risk management and climate change to ensure that development and operational planning, policy processes, and incentive systems address existing vulnerabilities, but also account for important climatic changes to avoid processes, which are maladaptive in medium to long-term. In this context, efforts will focus on supporting emerging development of partnerships and information sharing mechanisms, which bring together technical, development and policy perspectives and are essential for establishing a continuous economic framework for disaster and climate risk reduction.
- Ensure inclusion of the private sector in project preparation and implementation: While public sector support is important for strengthening climate risk management within development processes, the project recognizes that long-term sustainability can only be achieved through the inclusion of the private sector.
- Encourage individual initiative: Individual initiative should be encouraged. Building on the lessons learned in the Arid Lands Resource Management Program (ALMRP), where group ownership was emphasized (IGAs, social services) as well as group management approaches (drug dispensaries, water points). The pre-appraisal workshop highlighted the importance of fostering individual initiatives which are often seen as more sustainable.
- Conflict management is essential for development: The ALRMP was not designed to deal with conflict, but, by necessity, it had to strengthen community-based and other conflict management systems in order to carry out its development activities. Effective conflict management must involve the communities and build upon traditional institutions and structures. The proposed project will explicitly include activities to strengthen sustainable conflict management systems in the project area.
Sustainability:
The activities in the pilot district is designed to enhance the capacity of local institutions and stakeholders to integrate a longer time horizon into their planning, which should be sustainable beyond the implementation of the project’s investments. Tools and mechanisms will be developed for enhancing climate risk management that could be replicated to other districts.
Replication:
The lessons learned under the current project, in terms of planning enhancements, prioritisation of adaptation options, and improvements in institutional coordination, will help to create a basis for a much broader program of climate risk management. This is true of both scaling up the climate risk management efforts in rural livelihood enhancements in the ASALs (including by expanding from the pilot district to other districts covered by the current ALRMP2), as well as in other regions and sectors. There is, therefore, considerable scope for replication and scaling-up of successful experiences under this project. The strengthening of institutional coordination and the explicit attention for monitoring and evaluation and documentation of lessons learned will facilitate this replicability and scaling-up. In addition, the proposed project also includes provisions for periodic evaluations to inform other climate-affected investments in Kenya, as well as other adaptation initiatives in the region and beyond.
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