Wajir pioneers policy making through a climate change lens

Many Kenyans now say that the country’s climate has changed in a dramatic way. The current ongoing rains, which have resulted in the loss of unprecedented numbers of human lives and those of livestock, displacement and catastrophic damage to infrastructure are an ominous reminder that climate change is real. Tragically, the rains followed a protracted drought, which also took its share of loss of life and property.

The reality of climate change has hit home. It has however taken a long time for the phenomenon to be recognised for what it is. A major issue about which if nothing is done has the potential to reverse gains made in all fronts of the development process: economic, social, environmental and political.
At the national level, Kenya’s policy and legislative response to climate change has been pioneering. Climate change is no longer regarded as just a cross-cutting issue. Going by national policy and legal actions that have been taken in a very short space of time, the national government has clearly done its part. One only needs to recall several landmark policies and laws that have been formulated or enacted since 2010.These include the National Climate Change Response Strategy (NCCRS), the National Climate Change Action Plan (NCCAP); the Climate Change Act (2016) and others such as the National Climate Change Framework Policy (2017).

Whereas these progressive national policies and laws are now in place, they have not been well integrated into laws and policies at the county level. Part of the reason is that the NCCAP was completed at a time when counties were developing their first generation county integrated developed plans (CIDPs).

One exception to this reality is Wajir County. Unlike other counties in Northern Kenya, Wajir has come up with an elaborate process of planning its county-wide response the climate change. In particular, the County’s policy towards climate finance generally and public participation specifically is very well established. The County has enacted a Wajir Climate Change Fund Act 2016. One of the provisions of the Act is an allocation of 2 per cent of the County’s total budget to fund climate change interventions.

In additional to that legal provision, the public is involved in the decision making and prioritisation of climate change interventions right from the ward level. The integration of national climate change policies and laws into county-level laws in Wajir is principally the result of a programme known as the Adaptation Consortium (Ada Consortium). Headed by the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA), the Ada Consortium is mainly supported by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA). It began in 2010 in Isiolo County but has since been introduced in four other counties namely: Wajir, Garissa, Kitui and Makueni.

As a result, these counties have made much more progress in mainstreaming climate change into their laws and policies and in institutionalising public participation in the formulation of policies, enactment of laws and prioritisation of climate change programmes.


By developing these mechanisms from climate change financing these counties can access funding through the established global funds such as the Global Adaptation Fund. This was indeed one of the objectives of the Ada Consortium. Its success in the five counties particularly in Wajir and Makueni has proven to be worth emulating by other counties, particularly those in Northern Kenya where extreme climate events have proven to be most devastating.

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