Makueni gets Ksh 50M Climate Change kitty from UK

Makueni County will receive Ksh 50 million grants for Climate Change adaptation and resilience building after passing the Makueni County Climate Change Fund (CCCF) Regulation 2015.

The CCCF regulation is a first of its kind in Kenya and Africa and provides a mechanism through which counties and vulnerable groups can access and use climate finance to build their resilience to a changing climate in a more coordinated way.

Communities are organized and work through elected Ward Adaptation Planning Committees (WAPCs) to identify and prioritize public good investments that are reviewed and approved by County Adaptation Planning Committee (CAPC) based on agreed criteria that include support to dominant livelihood strategies, climate risk management, linkage with county integrated development plan, benefiting many people among others.

The Ksh 50 million is part of seed money provided by the Department for International Development (DFID)-UK through the Adaptation Consortium[1] to support counties to be climate finance ready and mainstream climate change in planning and implementation.

Other counties participating in the programme include Isiolo, Kitui, Wajir and Garissa who are also expected to put similar structures in place in the next few months. With such a framework in place, counties can access finances from diverse sources including from their own budgets.

Already, a team of Members of Parliament from United Kingdom has visited Makueni County for climate change campaigns.

The team targets to learn more about how climate change is affecting development in Kenya, what the county and national governments are doing in climate change as well as learn about the civil society campaigning in the global south in the run up to December’s Global Climate Change Summit in Paris.

The team from UK was led by Dr. Lisa Cameron (SNP Member of Parliament of East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lemahagow) and SNP spokesperson for climate justice Member of the International Development select committee, Steve Double (Conservative Member of Parliament for St. Austell and Newquay), Craig Williams (Conservative Member of Parliament of Cardiff North) and Simon Kirkland (UK Parliamentary and Political Adviser, Christian Aid).

The Makueni County Deputy Governor said that they will work with DFID to fight climate change in Makueni and added that they will set aside 1% of the County Budget to climate change.

Meanwhile in Machakos, Bishop ABC Timothy Ndambuki received a group of cyclists who had cycled all the way from Namanga in a climate change campaign.

Ndambuki urged the residents to embrace change and adopt appropriate technology in farming so that the country is food secure.

He urged the County governments of Machakos, Kitui and Makueni to set aside a fund for climate change.

Ndambuki lauded Makueni County for being way ahead in setting the led in fight of climate change.