Africa’s climate adaption: Kenya fights on for clean energy, climate services, community action despite mounting challenges

When she planted her maize crop at the end of April 2022, Catherine Wanjiku, a farmer in Mathioya constituency of central Kenya was already concerned that the seasonal rains were late but was grateful they had finally come.

She had planted the ‘624 hybrid’ maize variety as per her usual practice, with the hope of harvesting enough to feed her family of five at the end of the four-month period to maturity. But it was not to be.

That year Kenya experienced what was said to be its worst drought in 40 years. While her area being among the wetter parts of the country did not experience severe drought, the rains ended two months after they started, meaning that she could only harvest a quarter of his usual amount grain.

“I learnt my lesson the hard way. I no longer plant maize varieties that mature in four months. I shifted to fast-maturing varieties whether or not the rains are promising or inadequate. That way, I’m assured of a good yield,” she said of the coping mechanism she had adopted without prompting from anyone.

Kenya has been exposed to horrific floods, crushing droughts and erratic weather patterns over the last two decades, a testament to the dangerous times millions in the country are living through, especially the poor and the most marginalised.

In the past four years alone, the country has witnessed flooding and droughts, with hundreds of lives lost, livelihoods for millions destroyed and infrastructure severely damaged in what’s now a dangerous cycle of annual extreme weather events, said Mohamed Adow, director, Nairobi-based think tank, Power Shift Africa, adding:

For a country depending on rain-fed agriculture, where smallholder farmers constitute 60 per cent of the population responsible for feeding the country, crop failure means that farmers and their families are left with no means to survive, he noted. 

“In the Horn of Africa, after the 2020-2023 drought, the longest in the region in four decades, countries were overwhelmed by flooding, with unspeakable levels of death and destruction,” he told Down To Earth.

Rising temperatures, increased evaporation and minimal rainfall worsen water scarcity, putting crops, livestock and humans in jeopardy. 

On the other hand, susceptibility to malaria and other non-communicable diseases rise, thanks to changes in temperature fuelling the breeding, movement and prevalence of pathogens.  

“Our infrastructure, including roads, rail and power lines, isn’t made for flooding or excessive heat. The floods of May 2024 left hundreds of kilometres of roads, bridges and other critical infrastructure extensively damaged, setting the country back many years of hard-earned development,” the director explained. 

Equally, socioeconomic exclusion and inequality in post-independence Kenya, especially for nomadic communities of northern Kenya have enabled climate change erode their “little adaptive capacity” they had. 

“While these losses and damages have been life-changing, scientific projections show the climate situation will only worsen in the coming years, and it doesn't help that we’ve crossed the 1.5°C mark that the world could have avoided,” he said. 

Kenya has elaborate institutional, policy and statutory frameworks to address climate change and its impacts, and even though implementation has been slow, the country has mainstreamed these by integrating mitigation and adaptation interventions in its budgeting and development planning through the Kenya National Adaptation Plan. 

Institutions such as the National Drought Management Authority provide support to drought-impacted communities by promoting sustainable agriculture practices, including through irrigation, agroecology and the introduction of drought-resistant crops to enhance food security.

One major intervention has been the adoption of clean energy, which has made it a leader in Africa, with more than 92 per cent of its electricity tapped from geothermal, hydro, wind and solar. 

“Renewables are not only good for cutting emissions, but also for supporting agriculture, powering businesses and improving livelihoods. By solarising community boreholes, like we did in this small solar project in Garissa County, communities can have improved access to water for their households, livestock and farms,” he said.

This eliminates their reliance on rain-fed agriculture and the need to cover long distances in search of water, minimising communities’ climate vulnerability. 

Inevitably, these efforts have faced challenges, the biggest being inadequate resources, worsened by competing demands for resources, he offers.

The total climate finance needs are estimated at $56 billion for both mitigation and adaptation actions across sectors, out of which $7 billion is required to implement adaptation initiatives. 

Between 2015 and 2022, only $3.38 billion was committed to Kenya and its bilateral and multilateral financiers, indicating “abandonment of vulnerable communities”. 

The level of coordination required between government organs charged with responding to climate shocks, corruption and diversion of resources for climate action also hinder response, the director regretted. 

While civil society and other actors have made efforts to raise awareness on climate change, public understanding of the phenomenon, he reckoned, remains inadequate.

At the heart of the interventions are community-led initiatives targeting agriculture, water management, ecosystem and natural resource conservation. These local efforts complement government efforts to reduce climate vulnerability among Kenyans

At the regional level, the Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC), a specialised regional climate platform by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), has been instrumental in supporting Kenya’s efforts to adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate change. 

The IGAD is a horn-of Africa eight-member states organisation created in 1996 to address priority areas of food security and environmental protection, economic cooperation, regional integration and social development peace and security. ICPAC is one of its key organs.

The centre works closely with national institutions including the Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD), on programmes to build resilience and support adaptation across sectors.

According to Calistus Wachana, an expert on climate services user engagement at ICPAC, the regional centre has supported Kenya in establishing the National Framework for Climate Services (NFCS), whose aim is to bridge the gap between climate information providers and users across key sectors. 

The framework complements Kenya’s Climate Change Act (2016), which while it’s a law does not explicitly detail mechanisms for delivering climate services, he noted.

“Through the NFCS, there is a well-coordinated mechanism of bringing together stakeholders to generate, access timely, reliable, and actionable climate information for planning, disaster preparedness, and adaptation interventions,” he pointed out.

The centre has also partnered with KMD to facilitate the National Climate Outlook Forums (NCOF), which are aligned with Kenya’s main rainfall season of March-May and October-December. The forums support national and county-level climate adaptation, providing consensus forecasts and advisories that guide agricultural planning, water management, hydro-power generation plans and disaster preparedness, the official explained.

As a result, user engagement with ICPAC’s climate services has grown, particularly through digital tools such as the East Africa Hazard Watch, which enable monitoring of extreme events including droughts, cyclones, desert locust infestations, heavy rainfall, floods and crop failure.

However, challenges abound including limited capacity to customise forecasts to sector-specific needs, gaps in ground observation data, low community climate literacy and reliance on donor funding, Wachana added. Others include language constraints, underdeveloped “sectoral user interfaces”, while limited digital access hinders full utilisation of climate services.

“Despite the challenges the programmes have led to improved access to and use of climate information, especially in agriculture and disaster risk management, extension officers report more confidence in advising farmers, while county governments have begun integrating forecasts into local development plans,” he added.

Unlike regions such as Central Africa, Kenya has varied climatic zones including, arid and semi-arid areas making it vulnerable to climate change, according to Wambua Kituku, development practitioner, environmental lawyer & scholar at the University of Nairobi.

The country suffers “social stress” due to the effects including high temperatures and lack of water and pasture disrupting livelihoods, especially in times of drought, a situation which is not helped by weak immature institutions that lack the adequate capacity to deal with the adversities.

He singles out the Financing Locally-Led Climate Action Program (FLLoCA), a programme financed by the World Bank to enhance the capacity of both county and national governments to manage climate risks and implement climate resilience actions at the local level.

This, he says, is one of the few successful adaptation and mitigation initiatives at least in terms of implementation.

Final summary: Kenya is actively addressing climate change through various adaptation strategies, including sustainable agriculture, clean energy and community-led initiatives. Despite facing challenges such as resource constraints and public debt, the country is making progress with regional collaborations and climate services. However, more funding and coordination are essential to safeguard vulnerable communities from the impacts of extreme weather events.