Policy influence on climate Action, Kenyan Climate Change Act(2016)
Kenya is among the global south countries with a well established climate action legislative boldness, yet the country faces a great hindrance in translating this laws into community-level resilience actions.
Climate change act(2016) is the most effective national policy in driving climate action in Kenya. The policy moved climate change from environmental issues to a central development priority as it mandated different government agencies such as department of agriculture to integrate climate resilience into its budget. The policy also led to creation of County Climate Change Funds that help in driving Locally Led Adaptations at the county level. It also placed climate action as a legal priority not voluntary, as it led to creation of national bodies such as National Climate Change Council and Climate Change Directorate.
Kenyan national policy targets a National Determined Contributions of 32% on emissions by 2030 though ambitious, the policy experiences hurdles such as high dependency on international donor's such as the international climate funds which are short term financing sources.
Counties such as Kilifi experiences delay in remittance of funds from the national treasury to facilitate climate resilience adaptations.
This violates the principle of patient and predictable funding in implementation of Locally Led Climate action Adaptations.
Paris Agreement as an international climate action framework is vital starting point though insufficient on its own. The agreement's bottom up approach National Determined Contributions fosters national ownership and relies on voluntary contributions from developed countries. For Global south countries like Kenya, the effectiveness of the Paris Agreement terms is highly dependent on the Global Finance Gap, for example financial contributions on climate action from developed countries are lately inconsistent and sometimes comes as a loan rather than a grant and this highly hinder the positive outcome of the agreement.
In Bangladesh climate change act of 2009,locally financed adaptation initiatives through the Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund was critical for fostering locally led adaptations. Similar locally led initiatives are observed in Kenya and example is the Financing Locally Led Climate Actions program which channels funds to the ward level hence promoting community based adaptations and locally led adaptation on climate change such as Mangrove restoration in Kilifi creeks.
To bridge the gab between policy and actions, Kenya should move way beyond national planning and invest more on local capabilities as this ensure that the policy recognises the value of indigenous knowledge and decentralized finance.