Scottish Government pledges Ksh 48 million to Kenyan project to support ASAL communities facing climate change-induced loss and damage-Oxfam

The Scottish Government has today announced Ksh 48 million (GBP 250,000) of funding to support communities living in the arid and semi-arid region of Kenya to address the losses and damages created by the climate crisis.

The announcement, made during the climate conference COP 28 in Dubai, UAE, comes at a time when Kenya is witnessing deadly floods, induced by the EL Nino phenomenon, making this year’s rainy season wetter than average, according to the Kenya Metrological Department. The flash floods continue to wreak havoc, causing unprecedented destruction to property and decimating livelihoods, just when Kenya is recovering from one of her worst drought experiences in four decades. The long drought period of 2021-2023 rendered over 5 million people acutely food insecure in Kenya, and an estimated 2.5 million livestock dead.

“For years, communities across Kenya have been pushed to the brink by a climate crisis they did little to cause, facing prolonged, deadly, climate-induced drought and flash floods.

“The Scottish Government's funding for Kenya, and other countries facing the irreversible impacts of climate change, is welcome recognition of this injustice.

“With countries from around the world currently locked in critical climate conversations at the UN’s climate conference COP 28, we hope that the Scottish Government’s pioneering funding to enable and support communities to address loss and damage inspires similar action from other governments.” Said Sebastian Tiah, The Interim Country Director, Oxfam International, Kenya.

According to the latest OCHA and the Kenya Red Cross Society reports, over 95,000 households have been impacted, with over 45,000 of them completely displaced, and at least 71 people killed. Thousands of homes have been washed away or are marooned, while farmlands submerged, with over 17,000 acres of farmland destroyed and 13,500 livestock killed by the unrelenting waters.

The three-month grant, to be managed by Oxfam International, Kenya, will help build the resilience of affected communities, who continue to disproportionately bear the brunt of cyclic climate change-related emergencies that they have least contributed to.

It is estimated that an average 189 million people per year have been affected by extreme weather-related events in developing countries since 1991 when a mechanism was first proposed to address the cost of climate impacts on low-income countries, according to The Cost of Delay report by the Loss and Damage collaborators published in October.

The Scottish Government funding, a first of its kind in Kenya, will specifically be used to rehabilitate and upgrade critical strategic water systems damaged due to overuse during drought periods, or in conflict, in Isiolo and Samburu Counties.

The fund will additionally help communities to address economic losses and damages to household’s livelihoods through community-managed group cash transfers, while simultaneously alleviating non-economic losses due to the conflict created because of the economic losses and damages induced by climate change.

Oxfam in Kenya will work collaboratively with her local partner network, the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands Humanitarian Network (AHN), under its localization program framework to roll out the program and reach the most impacted families under the scheme. AHN is a 30-member platform, established in 2019, operating within ten ASAL counties, and promotes a locally led humanitarian system within the regions.
The funding was allocated via the Scottish Government’s Humanitarian Emergency Fund.

‘’We are glad this funding has come at a time when coping capability of communities in the Kenyan Arid and Semi-Arid regions have been stretched beyond limit because of the cyclic shocks caused by climate change, it is a grant in the nick of time. We hope that more countries will heed our appeal for loss and damage funding and commit more resources to supporting climate-impacted communities whose numbers keep growing in the face of myriad challenges resulting from climate extremes of both flood and drought.’’ Said Ahmed Ibrahim, the AHN Convenor.

A total of 4,000 Households will be targeted in the program set to begin in January 2024.

At COP 26 in Glasgow in 2021, the Scottish Government became the first government in the world to commit funding to addressing loss and damage from the climate crisis and has continued to call for other governments to do the same.

Last year, COP 27 agreed to establish a new global loss and damage fund, and it is hoped the ongoing talks at COP 28 will deliver a just and equitable purpose and structure for the fund, ensuring it is inclusive, transparent, and accountable to impacted communities.