Sustainable Livelihoods and Climate Justice

Overview: Kenya faces significant challenges in achieving sustainable livelihoods and food security, with nearly 14.1 million people currently experiencing food insecurity according to recent reports. This is besides increasing vulnerability to climate change, manifested in more frequent and intense extreme weather events.  Additionally, climate change intensifies droughts and floods disrupting crop cycles, reducing yields, and threatening pastoralist communities in ASALs. Climate change has also significantly impacted livelihoods dependent on forestry, tourism and fisheries of local and indigenous people who are mostly marginalized. Further, budgetary allocations to the agricultural sector are consistently below the 10% commitment under the Malabo Declaration. Governance challenges like mismanagement of agricultural subsidies, conflicts, weak enforcement of land use policies and environmental laws, limited involvement of local communities in decision-making processes related to natural resource management and limited access to credit for smallholder farmers, further
exacerbate the situation. These challenges pose threats to food security, water safety, and availability.

Hakijamii aims under this strategic result area to promote sustainable practices for secure and resilient livelihoods as well as to build community resilience to climate variability. We will also support equitable climate governance by prioritizing the participation of vulnerable groups in decision making processes, ensuring that climate policies are inclusive and advocating for strategies that align with the principles of climate justice. We will address the systemic inequalities that hinder adaptive capacities of communities by empowering local stakeholders, improving climate literacy, and ensuring equitable access to resources for adaptation.

In Kenya, while there have been efforts to integrate climate adaptation into national
development plans, marginalized communities still face barriers to meaningful
involvement in policymaking, often due to a lack of access to information, capacity,
and political representation. To build resilience, there is a need for policies that not
only provide technicalsolutions but also promote inclusion, equity, and empowerment
at the community level. Priority Issues: Hakijamii will under this result area focus on exclusion of vulnerable groups from climate governance processes; policy gaps; ineffective climate justice AJS; and insufficient resourcing of climate adaptation efforts. We will furthermore address
concerns around non-integration of traditional knowledge into climate resilience
strategies; gender inequalities in climate change initiatives; unsustainable land use
and farming practices; and unfair distribution of the burdens and benefits of climate change impacts.

Expected Outcome(s):
1. Increased ability of communities, the State and NSAs to prepare for, address
climate change effects, and recover from disruptions.