Call for professionalised grassroots climate action as Kenya hosts climate justice symposium

Kenya’s grassroots green financing program is at the defining phase for locals to prove their strategies in implementing projects to sustain them within their localities from the biting climate change effects.

The Treasury subsidiary office handling the Financing Locally Led Climate Action (FLLoCA) program attests to witnessing the climate change knowledge gap at various stages of the program in all 47 counties.

According to climate action experts in Kenya, the county implementation units need to be impacted and guided through the processes more often as well as the locals who are at the forefront of implementing climate action projects, in a bid to ensure yields.

As Kenya is playing host for two weeks, to the fourth International Symposium on Climate Justice which is entering a close to the first week the knowledge gap factor is on the radar to facilitate an increase in climate change action professionals in the villages.

The annual ‘green’ school dubbed ‘Nairobi Summer School’ is hosted at Chuka University in Tharaka-Nithi County in partnership with climate change organisations and other local universities.

The Financing Locally-Led Climate Action (FLLoCA) program has invested in 98 students from all 47 counties to benefit from the training and boost local understanding of the climate change action narrative among the youthful generation.

“We decided to introduce the academic empowerment to youth strategy to locals because the major challenge to FLLoCA in the counties right now is the climate change technical knowhow; most staff in those climate change units are handpicked not on academic qualification basis but just for the sake of keeping the units running,” said Peter Odhengo, the FLLoCA program coordinator.

The competitive climate change scholarship program dubbed Nairobi Summer School saw over 4,000 applications internationally yet only 280 scholars got the chance for the scholarship.

The rigorous selection process focused on academic qualifications with a minimum of a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree at the highest academic qualification level in any field of study strictly landing on youth of 35 years of age and below.

According to Mr Odhengo, the 98 Kenya youth attending the fortnight program will be taken further for yet another private climate change training in the country before they are posted for 6 months attachment in their counties of origin Climate Change Units with a possible employment recommendation after the attachment period to enhance local operations in climate action at the county levels.

“Having people with basic and professional knowledge in the County Climate Action offices will tighten loose ends and provide readily available support to the locals who are the Climate Action projects implementers, currently some counties are finding it rough for lack of climate change technical knowledge,” he said.

“But the good thing is that we have FLLoCA representatives on the ground walking the journey with the county governments and the locals, the Climate change-trained youth will be the counties’ technical experts.”

The annual climate change symposium has 82 African countries' representation as well as 52 other countries' representation globally.

However, the group of 98 trainees by FLLoCA has been inaugural since the rollout of the grassroots Action green finance in 2024.

According to the program officials, the scholarship program is expected to run every financial year.