Kenya Platform for Climate Governance set up a chapter in Turkana County

The Kenya Platform for Climate Governance has today opened a new chapter in Turkana County through whch it aims to advocate for climate change issues faced by the Turkana people.

At a public forum held in Lokichar town of Turkana county, over 100 participants affirmed their commitment to clamour for fair and just climate laws within the country in line with the national aspirations.

In their quest for justice, Kenya Platform for Climate Governance in collaboration with Turkana Extractives Consortium (TEC) will work with other stakeholders to ensure that governments (at both levels) and inter-governmental bodies are efficiently implementing sovereign commitments to human rights in the context of environmental and climate justice.

Government accountability will be achieved through: compliance scorecards; monitoring achievement of environmental and climate justice; and training CSOs on compliance monitoring.

Key CSOs gap identified for intervention in Turkana County

According to the participants, there is limited CSOs awareness on climate justice advocacy in the context of climate justice advocacy on key resources (environment, land, extractives, water, investors) and targeted and effective public participation in devolved governance.

It was also noted that weak and uncoordinated organizational structures and voices of climate change impacted communities. Further, it was also pointed out that poor linkages with inter county, national, regional and international government and networks for effective advocacy

Objective of the activity

The Turkana platform will aim to enhance the CSOs consortium members climate justice advocacy capacity in the context of climate change, environmental rights violations and pastoralism. The 30 CSOs and community representatives will be capacity build to better coordination of the network, improve awareness on climate justice advocacy and inclusion of vulnerable populations in the debate.

Outcome

A strengthened Turkana Extractive Consortium- TEC positions itself to maximize civil society space and advocates for more equitable raising and spending of financial resources, Climate change is becoming one of the most serious challenges to Kenya’s achievement of its development goals as described under Vision 2030.

The country’s economy is largely dependent on rain fed agriculture, livestock, forestry, fishery and tourism, each susceptible to climate variability and change and extreme weather events. Increasing inter-seasonal variability and declining rainfall in the main rainy seasons have impacted cereal production in recent years. Recurrent droughts and floods – likely to be exacerbated by increasing temperatures, heavy rainfall events and sea level rise – have led to increased and severe crop and livestock losses, famine and displacement.

The members of the consortium work in generally three focus areas:

• Livelihoods – advocacy for sustainable pastoralism in the context of climate change, insecurity and human development
• Governance – Poor governance (Poor representation, Corruption and increased poverty levels in Turkana County. The consortium influences local climate change impacted communities across the county.
• Human Rights– To flatten the curve of increased violence through a robust grievance handling mechanism where both the duty holder and duty bearer follow the rule of law. increased human rights violations (GBV)
• Organization capacity strengthening to deliver key mandates to the vulnerable and marginalized Turkana populations: to forge a unified multisectoral advocacy voices for remediation. CSOs and grass community structures will recognize the increased demand by African citizens on their governments and inter-governmental bodies to act on climate change and environmental issues and to implement international sustainable development agreements.