Kenya's community-first climate approach lets locals pick projects
When a water pan was built in a grazing reserve in northern Kenya in the 1980s, the central government hailed the project - which it had funded - as a vital solution to tackle water scarcity and ultimately improve the lives of local pastoralists.
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"The water pan caused encroachment by other communities, destroying the reserve," which was part of an old grazing rotation system designed to ensure grass availability for local herders even in drought periods, said Abdi Adi, chairman of the Cherad Ward Plan Committee in Isiolo.
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He emphasised that the Borana community was not consulted about the pan before it was built - which ended up increasing their drought risk rather than reducing it, as a result of a loss of grazing.
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In Kenya, problems like that with the water pan arose because community involvement in allocation of climate adaptation resources used to be nearly non-existent, with everything run by the central government, several experts said.
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But things changed in 2010 when a pilot project in Isiolo saw local governments and communities involved in the planning process and distribution of resources, with county-specific policies created.
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