PACJA, Partners seek integration of environment, population and health programmes

Naivasha, April 4 2022: Lack of integration of demographic factors into environmental management planning could hinder Kenya’s development, a meeting of environmental, health and population experts in Naivasha have said.

At a meeting in Naivasha to strategise on population, health and environment, James Kanyi, of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) noted that the country’s rising population could hinder her plans have seen encroachment of human settlement in fragile ecosystems including water catchment areas, and rapid fragmentation of high potential agricultural land into uneconomical units.

“In the context of climate change challenge, the government must integrate population, health and environment initiatives to realise sustainable development,” said Kanyi.

According to experts meeting in Naivasha, Kenya’s population has been growing rapidly as a result of decades of high fertility and is projected to continue growing as a result of the huge momentum created by the youthful structure.

But with improved health indicators that have seen people living longer than before, the country of 48 million people now faces various challenges that come about due to the complex relationships between population, poverty, and environmental conditions.

Kanyi said rapid population growth and the resultant dwindling landholdings, for example, have pushed more people onto landscapes poorly suited for agriculture, grazing, and settlement, such as steep hillsides and urban watersheds.

“This is pushing many households to become vulnerable to food and water shortages and ultimately, more susceptible to disease and poor health. Continued improvement in the quality of life of Kenya’s citizens depends largely on finding innovative and integrated solutions to complex population, health, and environment problem,” said Kanyi.

Kanyi added that the country recognized the need to integrate population and environmental variables into development planning in order to accommodate the needs of current and future generations. The population pressure is a major contributing factor to high rate of environmental degradation and unpredictable climate changes. 

However, he noted that it does not help the country when population, health and environment policies and strategies get implemented in silos as they are today. “This will lead to loss of synergy and value for money,” he noted.

He said that there is a growing realization that moving forward towards realization of Kenya Vision 2030, ICPD25 Kenya Country Commitments, Agenda 2063, and 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Kenya will need to accelerate integrated PHE programming and initiatives.

Kenya’s population structure is generally youthful with the proportion of the population below 25years comprising of about 66 percent. The projected growth of the country’s population is expected to constrain availability of natural resources and provision of social services. 

According to the AFIDEP, a PACJA partner on health and climate change under the BUILD Project, Kenya has witnessed improved health indicators especially in fertility where the total fertility rate has dropped from an average of 4.5 children per woman in 2008/09 to 3.9 in 2014. The contraceptive prevalence rate surpassed the national target and reached 58 percent while infant and child mortality declined during the same period from 52 to 39 and 74 to 52 deaths per thousand live births respectively. However, some indicators like maternal mortality are still high despite concerted efforts and initiatives to lower the rate.

East African Community (EAC) commits partner states to adopt measures and policies to address the existing profiles such as high population growth and fertility rates, high dependency levels, poor socio-economic performance and poverty in order to mitigate their adverse impact on environment and development.

As part of these efforts, EAC developed it PHE strategic plan and issued a directive to member countries to develop PHE strategic plans in line with their respective country’s requirements. This notwithstanding, the inter-ministerial National Policy Steering committee approved development of a national PHE strategic plan as a starting point In heeding this call, Kenya developed the National PHE Strategic Plan 2018 – 2022 to facilitate mobilization of resources and champion the implementation of PHE in the country.

The concept of PHE integration is not a new one as it originated from the 1992 Rio Summit Declaration on Environment and Development (UNICED) – “the Earth Summit”. In this conference, Synergy between population, health and environment were identified as a crucial building block for achieving sustainable development. Twenty years later, during the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio +20), this recognition led to the development of a new global development agenda, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted during the UN General Assembly held in New York, USA in September 2015 to replace the MDGs since January 2016.

In addition, the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo, Egypt in 1994 underscored the need for integrated environment and development programs that take into account demographic and health trends. PHE integration in projects/programme design and implementation has been found to translate into greater benefits for populations and communities’ well-being.

Despite the important benefits that can be gained by integrating Population, Health and Environment in project/programmes design and implementation, the adoption of PHE integrated approach faces many challenges such as;

• Lack of policy, legal and institutional legitimacy
• Parallel implementation by different sectors
• Inadequate Institutional capacity to link activities among sectors effectively and to manage multi-faceted programmes
• Inadequate documentation and dissemination of lessons learnt in PHE approaches to Policy makers, Programme implementers and other stakeholders
• Inadequate Communication and Networking among organizations in different sectors on PHE issues and
• Inadequate funding for the PHE integrated projects and programmes

The above challenges, coupled with the emerging evidence in Kenya which show that PHE Projects improve household food security, health and livelihoods while enhancing environment protection and conservation efforts have led to the need to develop a national PHE Policy Guidelines. These policy guidelines will strengthen the implementation of the current and future strategic plans for PHE. In addition to this, the policy guidelines will support other existing frameworks such as the Environment Management and Coordination Act (1999), National Health Policy, and the Population Policy for National Development.