Grassroots funds allocated to enhance Kenya's climate resilience

The continent of Africa is looking up to Kenya to lead the way to climate adaptation solutions in the fight against climate change. 

Kenya has no excuse whatsoever to fail to deliver communities-led resilient climate action. 

Kenyans at Grassroots are expected to get to work since action money is not a problem.

 A resolution was passed by the steering committee of the Financing Locally Led Climate Action (FLLoCA) Programme of the National Government Treasury, directing KES.7.3 billion to be distributed to 45 counties that meet the program's eligibility requirements in the current fiscal year. 

The counties can fund grassroots climate resilient projects with over KES 10 billion available to them.

The World Bank and its partners have contributed KES 7.3 billion towards climate change adaptation financing, while the counties have contributed KES 3.1 billion to their own county climate change fund. 

To be eligible for the programme, each county must contribute 1.5% of their development budget.

“We already released climate action money to the counties and we expect that the communities are busy working on climate resilient projects as money is not a problem.” said Mr. Peter Odhengo, FLLoCA Program coordinator for Kenya.

Kenya has 47 counties total; the only two that do not meet the minimal requirements for programme access are Nairobi and Mombasa, both of which are urban counties.

FLLoCA Program policy

 Nairobi and Mombasa counties have not been able to accomplish the requirements of creating an institutional legal framework, opening a county climate dedicated account, and establishing a county climate change policy in order to be eligible for the FLLoCA programme.

The two counties are eligible for the first institutional support grant, known as the County Climate Institutional Support Grant (CCIS). 

The World Bank has approved their CCIS, but they have not submitted or demonstrated their County Climate Change Act, so the funds cannot be disbursed to them.

Two types of funds are available under the FLLoCA programme, which is a mechanism for financing climate change. 

The first fund is known as the County Climate Change Institutional Support Grand (CCIS), which is awarded to a county in order to help it develop its institutional and human capacity in order to enable the county to deploy the larger grand, known as the Second Fund Category or Action grant, which supports community projects that meet the threshold for climate resilience. 

A county must establish its county climate change fund, which is provided for within section 25 of the national climate change act which gives the Cabinet Secretary (CS) national treasury leeway to establish the fund.

To get the funds, a county has to have a special purpose account.  The goal is to secure it, monitor it in real time, and make sure that no one can access it without following the established protocols. 

The governor, the Counter Executive Committee (CEC) in charge of finance and economic planning, the CEC in charge of the environment, and their respective chief officers sign the person in charge of finances at the county level. All the effort is meant to protect the money and its usage. 

How FLLoCA money flow to the wards:

 Kenya has 1450 wards. The money goes to the wards, however not in an equal ratio but based on participatory climate risk assessment. 

The participatory climate risk assessment is a process through which the representatives from national government, the county government, civil society organization, the private sector, and the whole county approach seat together in a given ward to discuss and prioritize their own climate needs and projects that they think will respond to the adaptive capacity to enable them built the resilience of human livelihood support system, infrastructure and also their wellbeing. 

The projects are prioritized in three themes: Agriculture, water, environment and natural resources, that takes about 70% of the total,20% of the total of the money is dedicated for projects by people leaving with disability, women, indigenous people, youth and specialized emerging issues like disaster risk management.

FLLoCA program Journey in Kenya

FLLoCA program was initiated in 2019 on realization that devolution program never had component of climate change.,world bank had already been supporting Kenya on a program muted to support devolution.

It was found necessary in the midterm review that there was need to include a component to address climate change in 2018/2019 hence it was piloted in 3 counties; Siaya,Narok and Kwale.

After the pilot, demand for climate change that address resilience building and adaptation at local level was realized and people requested for  more comprehensive way to mobilize adequate resources to address climate change at local level.

In 2019 during Conference Of Parties on Climate Change (COP25) in Madrid, Spain, the Kenya national Treasury climate finance and green economy unit, and the ministry of environment climate change directorate then, and council of governors sat and agreed to explore a comprehensive possibility of designing a whole inclusive program which give the people themselves a say and contribution to their own knowledge so as to  address climate change in a wholestic manner and by 2020, a whole government approach was established.

FLLoCA was designed at the National Treasury to mobilize money in large scale as per the requirements of Paris Agreement that developed countries mobilize money and support the developing countries to address the climate change challenges and this was linked by Kenyan national determined contribution (NDC) which indicate that Kenya need US$ 62B upto 2030 to address climate change of which Kenya's priority is adaptation.