A review of Kenya’s national policies relevant to climate change adaptation and mitigation: Insights from Mount Elgon

Abstract

Kenya’s afromontane forests provide a range of foods, fibers and fodder that are critical for rural households’ basic livelihood needs. They protect communities against erosion and landslides, and maintain local climate stability in the face of erratic rainfall, wind gusts and increased temperatures. These areas also host remnant populations of plants and animals that depend on high-altitude climatic/ vegetative conditions under threat from climate change. At a larger spatial scale, Kenya’s five “water towers” supply and regulate hydrological flows for all but one of Kenya’s major rivers, with major impacts on agricultural economies, lake fisheries, hydropower, etc. At a global level, forests cycle nutrients and help to regulate climate change through carbon sequestration. Kenya’s afromontane regions are threat from continued commercial logging by pulp and wood processing companies, charcoal production and encroachment of forested areas for agriculture and settlements. In the recent past, Kenya has experienced erratic weather patterns causing prolonged drought and frequent floods. The combination of climate variability and deterioration of forest cover in watersheds has had severe impacts, including loss of human life and livestock, damage to infrastructure, poor crop yields, famines, wildlife migrations, and human migrations and displacements due to major flooding events, all of which have had adverse impacts on livelihoods and the national economic performance. According to the most recent IPCC report on climate change (IPCC 2014), the frequency of occurrence and intensity of episodes of climate variability in East Africa can be expected to increase significantly over the decade. Consequently, Kenya requires clear policies that guide the sustainable use and management of forests and suitable land-use practices that can lead to an increase in carbon stocks and enhanced resilience both of local stakeholder livelihoods and the ecosystem services that these rely on. The objective of this study is to analyze Kenya’s national policies related to climate change adaptation and mitigation, with specific focus on the contexts of the forest and agroforestry-dependent livelihoods and ecosystem services typical of the Mt. Elgon ecosystem. This analysis was built on a review of policy documents, secondary literature and insights from national and district level stakeholder workshops. The policy analysis begins with an overview of changes in forest and tree cover in Kenya, the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation. It then reviews and discusses the implications of policy documents from key sectors on national climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts. The study identifies conflicts between policies, offers appropriate recommendations for mainstreaming climate change adaptation into sectoral and crosscutting policies, and suggests means for improving their translation into tangible benefits for rural farming communities. This review identifies a range of overlapping sectoral policies (such as agriculture, energy and forestry) are poorly integrated, and lack investment research to generate data, information and knowledge needed for evidence-based policy formulation or decision making. Furthermore, in the context of climate change, the policies reviewed do not adequately address the vulnerability of communities or their exposure, resilience and adaptive capacity to the impacts of climate change. Similarly, they provide little guidance for the development of land-scape level climate change mitigation measures. These findings indicate a need for Kenya to formulate an exclusive and comprehensive climate change policy and legislative framework that creates, or sets out the mandate of, a leading institution, which will spearhead the nation’s efforts in climate change adaptation and mitigation. This will make it possible to mainstream climate change through all sectors of Kenya’s economy, as reflected in the National Climate Change Response Strategy and the Vision 2030.