Wajir County launches Ksh.98.6M Climate Change Fund

The County Government of Wajir on Wednesday March 7, announced plans to spend 96.8 Million shillings on the newly launched Wajir County Climate Change fund projects.

Speaking to the press, Wajir, Deputy Governor Ahmed Muktar said that the fund, through the Wajir County Integrated Plan, will help achieve climatic change through maximization of renewable energy and massive tree planting exercise across the six sub counties.

” Wajir County has been experiencing increasingly frequent and severe drought events that have largely weakened the livelihoods and economy. These are often followed by flash flooding that also damages the limited but critical infrastructure such as roads and settlements.As a county, we made a decision to come up with better and coordinated ways of dealing with these challenges even as we wait for national level policies and plans, said Muktar

While Wajir is the first county to launch a climate change fund, Muktar noted that climate change poses a great risk to development processes and effort further emphasizing on the need for an appropriate development pathway that takes into account the diverse risks and uncertainties associated with climate variability and change.

“We must also endeavour to identify opportunities that may arise with changing climate and strive to tap into them. This is more realisable with the current devolved governance structure as we are mandated by the Constitution of Kenya, 2010 to deliver services at appropriate levels,”he added

The County Climate Change Fund will be used to address climate related challenges that affect the people of Wajir from their own perspectives using a bottom-up approach where the communities who feel the heat are at the forefront in identifying and prioritising investments that build their resilience to climate change.

“We have implemented 14 projects that are benefitting communities in a variety of ways including provision of water for livestock and domestic use and better natural resource governance. We are in the process of implementing additional 20 projects across 20 wards in the second wave of investments that will bring the total to 34 projects.”  indicated Muktar

Alongside the climate projects, the County Government of Wajir has further allocated  750 million shillings this financial year to the thirty(30) wards towards the Ward based projects so as to spur growth and stimulate the economy of those in the far flung areas of our county.

The World Bank which runs a project in partnership with both the National and County Government named Kenya Off-grid Solar Access Project (KOSAP) also seeks to establish solar generated energy at the villages by establishing substations that harvest sunshine.

Also present was Pete Vowels, Head of DFID-UK in Kenya who lauded the County Government for the plans in place on climate change.

“We are in Wajir to hear from national government leaders, County Government and other grassroot leaders on the development agenda of the County. Wajir has set aside 2% of their development budget to supporting climate change interventions. This is the first in Kenya and a role model for modern development partnership,”said Vowels

Moving forward, the County Government is planning to upscale this work across the 30 wards with the support and accompaniment of Ada Consortium, ALDEF, and other stakeholders to ensure proper coordination and an appropriate quality work.

The County hopes that DfID and other development partners will continue working with them in addressing climate change related challenges which may too big for the county to handle on its own.