Articles

Kajiado County

KEFRI’s Project will address three components of the AF Programme namely:
1. Component 1: Enhancing Climate Change Resilience for Improved Food Security
2. Component 2: Improving climate resilient water management.
3. Component 3: Strengthening capacity and knowledge management for Program Implementation and Climate change adaptation.

KEFRI SUB-EXECUTING ENTITIES

Kajiado County

NASARU’s project will address two components of the AF Programme namely:

1. Component 1: Enhancing Climate Change resilience for improved food security in Kajiado West, Kajiado County.
2. Component 2: Improving climate resilient water management systems to enhance food security in selected Counties.

Kisumu County

VIRED’s project will address three components of the AF programme as follows:
1. Component 1: Improving climate resilient water management systems to enhance food security in Kisumu County.
2. Component 2: Disaster risk reduction and increasing preparedness among vulnerable communities. Component
3. Component 5: Strengthening capacity and knowledge management for Program Implementation and Climate change adaptation.

Summary of KEFRI

Kenya Forestry Research Institute (KEFRI),is one of the major Executing Entities of NIE. Its project by KEFRI is being implemented in Loitoktok, Kajiado County. Loitokitokis located at the southern tip of Rift Valley province near the Kenyan border and Republic of Tanzania to the West, Taveta district to the South East, Kajiado Central to the North West and Kibwezi to the East.

The County gets water from Tsavo River with its main tributaries Nolturesh, Magoine and Rombo, which flows from the eastern slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro. This river is perennial in the upper parts. Ground water yields vary throughout the district from 0.01 to 35.77 cubic metres per hour. Average ground water is reported as good quality and is used for domestic, livestock and irrigation purposes. The area is characterised with inadequate water facilities, encroachment of water catchment areas, poor water resource mapping and poor coordination of water actors among others.

To enhance climate change resilience for improved food security in selected counties, 5064 Kgs of seed has been distributed out of the 10000 Kgs that had been stipulated , 15 Demonstration sites have been set up, and prioritisation of farmers to get drip kits has been done. Establishment of tree nurseries has taken off and training on Climate Change Adaptation strategies have taken place. Local farmers have benefited from fruits like citrus and mangoes, Entonet School was also a beneficiary of the programme. The school has a demo site where they had planted maize, beans, iris potatoes, tomatoes, cabbages.

 Currently, maize is on the site, well flourishing. The school has a fruit tree site consisting of oranges and mangoes. They are in stable condition. They have a total of 144 fruit tree seedlings. The school distributed assorted seeds to 30 pupils belonging to 4K- club to plant at their homes. This was encouraged as it encourages and gives pupils the hand-on skills on crop husbandry. However, the construction of Water Pans and granaries has not been done yet, to build capacity and knowledge programme several local radio stations have enhanced this factor and the message has been passed around.

Other challenges, are operational constraints and attack of citrus seedlings by a pest known as Orange dog, this was addressed by the sub county agricultural officer on what pesticides to use. One farmer said that the biggest challenge is invasion of their farms by pastoralists when accessing water and grass for their livestock. He proposed that they have a borehole instead of water pans for security purposes and also for sustainability, as water pan are invaded frequently.

The project by NASARU is being implemented in Lodokilani ward, sub County of Kajiado West in Kajiado County. It has key project deliverables as water harvesting; promotion of drought tolerant crops and irrigation of agriculture around dams; awareness creation and capacity building on climate change. The indigenous inhabitants of the project area are the Maasai. The Maasai are nomadic cattle herders, although some members of this community practice subsistence agriculture. Maasais consider cattle a sacred gift from their God ,Enkai. The animals are a sign of wealth in the community and are often used in payment of dowry.

Kajiado County is primarily semi-arid. The average annual temperature in the county is 18.9°C. The area receives about 500mm of rainfall annually, most of it falling in April. The month of August is usually extremely dry. The community depends on available water pans to get water for their domestic use. Most of these water pans are owned by individual households and a few are community owned. During extreme weather conditions, the local people are forced to migrate to areas where they can get water and pasture for their livestock.

NASARU women CBO has procured and distributed 2,500kgs of Amaranthus and another 2,500kgs of drought tolerant crops (sorghum) to the selected women groups.

 In addition, the representative women farmers have been trained on farming of drought tolerant crops. There were trainings on installation and maintenance of Drip irrigation micro-kits to the selected members. Installation of Drip irrigation micro-kits is underway and selection of construction sites has been done.

The biggest challenge of NASARU is integrating farming to the community as an alternative source of livelihood to a community who are nomadic pastoralists. Lack of sufficient water is also a challenge facing the project. Delay of the funds owing to the fact that the EE has been categorized as a high risk entity thus has even much closer monitoring and the funds can only be released quarterly. The NIE, KEFRI are assisting the EE on procurement procedures to ensure effective and efficient uptake of funds.

Victoria Research and Development (ViRED), is executing entity located in Suba, Homa Bay County, and borders Lake Victoria to the North and West, Migori District’s Karungu Division to the South; and Ruma National Park covering Central Division of Suba District and Ndhiwa Division of Homa Bay District to the West. It covers a total area of 332.9 km². Gwassi Division is the largest and most populous in Suba District where Suba is one of the nine districts selected by the Ministry of Planning and National Development as a pilot district for implementation of district based initiatives to fast track the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The division has more than 70% of the people without access to clean drinking water.  This has resulted in prevalence of waterborne diseases including diarrhoea affecting about 32% of children below 5 years.  During the implementation of the Programme, World Vision in collaboration with various stakeholders will promote effective management and supply of water resources in order to increase the adaptive capacity of the selected communities. The key adaptation mechanisms will include increased irrigation technology, water and soil conservation strategies and use of drought tolerant crops.

Various members of the community were consulted onsite identification and appropriate sites for dyke construction were identified. Government institutions with earth moving machines were identified. Blocked drainage channels in the basin were also identified and the farm implements to be used for blocking the channels were purchased.

Vouchers for opening the 10Km of blocked drainage channels were printed and the traders identified. They conducted community mobilization and trained 35 people on propagation and economic importance of Bamboo. One bamboo nursery was successfully established and the materials to establish the other three were purchased. Bamboo seedlings and cuttings were also purchased.113 community members were trained on the use of early warning systems to mitigate the adverse effects of drought and flooding to their livelihood. 24 teachers were also trained on early warning systems to minimize impact of disaster on learning.

102 community members were trained on disaster preparedness to mitigate the negative impacts of disasters in Nyando Basin. 40 teachers were also trained on disaster preparedness. Vired procured 5000 seedlings and 5000 cuttings of bamboo that were planted, along river Ombei that originates from Nandi Hills, bamboo trees have been planted.

The biggest challenge in this case is flooding. It is a wetland area therefore, cases of over flooding we’ll always happen unless people are sensitized on ways to deal with the situation because climate change occurs every second. Vired has the capacity to mobilize the area people into being aware of any climatic disaster. Another challenge is delay of funds to buy trees for planting. The EE should be able to monitor the distribution of funds and ensure that effective usage of the funds is undertaken and also there is efficient release of funds.