FPFK Kajiado climate change resilience project

Introduction

The FPFK Kajiado climate change resilience project is a five-year project of Free Pentecostal Fellowship in Kenya (FPFK) funded by Norwegian Pentecostal Mission (NPM) and being implemented in Kajiado County. The project is designed to build the resilience of vulnerable community members in Kajiado County against the impacts of climate change and support them adopt renewable sources of energy for sustainable healthy living. The project design places the social and economic well-being of the communities in Kajiado County at the center of focus, seeking to address the socioeconomic and institutional constraints that limit their capacity in responding to the impacts of climate change.

2024 being in the initiation phase, the project focused on foundational activities such as stakeholder engagement forums, awareness creation, baseline and water assessments, capacity building. The groundwork is being laid to ensure the successful implementation of planned interventions. The project has noted the following results in relation to the outcome.

Outcome 1 of; Vulnerable members of the Communities in Mashuuru, Emaroro, and Kajiado Central Sub-counties have access to reliable water sources

Through participatory forums with the primary stakeholders held in the target areas, 9 borehole sites have been identified which led to formation of 9 Community-based water management structures to enhance ownership and sustainability. 15 Women have been included in these committees to ensure that water needs by women who are main users, are well addressed. These committees have laid down water resource sharing strategies in preparedness to handle future water-related conflicts.

The project has developed collaborative plans with key stakeholders, including faith leaders, local administrators, the Ministry of Water, the Ministry of Agriculture, and non-state actors such as Child Fund, Action Aid, and Compassion International. These stakehold- ers have provided valuable insights on conflict-sensitive approaches to water resource management. The project has an agreement with a competent consultant (Water For The World) and plans for the hydrological survey and drilling are underway.

Through awareness creation on efficient water utilization and water saving strategies the project notes 20% of the targeted farmers making use of the short rains experienced in October -December 2024. They have taken their own initiative of installing gutters for water harvesting for domestic use, with a few taking up farm water retention practices like mulching. (see annexed success stories)

Under outcome 2 of: Vulnerable members of the communities in Mashuuru, Emaroro, and Kajiado Central Sub-counties are adopt- ing alternative sources of livelihoods and renewable energy as means of building their resilience to the impacts of climate change.

This year, the project notes 15% of the targeted participants having Increased understanding of climate change impacts and adaptive strategies. The capacity of staff has been enhanced through the learning received during the partners learning workshop held in Eswati- ni, where 3 project staff visited the STREEC project in Eswatini and learned how to set up a renewable energy center for the project earmarked to start in November 2025. Plans to identify an appropriate center for Kajiado have been rolled out. Plans to pilot use of biogas since most of the farmers have livestock, will be rolled out in the next quarter

In 2024, many farmers have been linked to learn on alternative livelihoods existing within the project sites to reduce overreliance on livestock keeping. 2 CSOs with 33 members have visited and learnt bee keeping as an alternative, from Mr Tom Ntikoye, currently doing bee farming in Nemasi village, with 26 bee hives installed on his farm, he sells honey locally. 11 other community members have been linked to learning poultry farming. Additionally, by applying organic manure on their farms, they have been now able to cultivate drought resistant crops such cowpeas. (see annexed success stories)

Outcome 3 of: Strong CSOs advocating and providing local solutions to the impacts of climate change.

Through the partnership with the Ministry of Sports and Social Services, the project has worked with existing 11 CSOs out of 15 target- ed, who have started savings at group level. Through the interactive meetings with them, the groups have included climate change advocacy objectives in their group action plans. This is part of strengthening institutional capacity to address climate change related challenges and creating sustainability.

Community expectations have been managed through 22 local dialogue forums initiated by the team in collaboration with the identi- fied CSOs, who have been in constant discussions on project objectives and providing answers to questions asked by community members.

Outcome 4 of: FPFK Positioned for adaptive effective & efficient governance

In the year 2024, FPFK was able to strengthen the organizational internal capacity in order to support the targeted communities achieve the above stated outcomes. This was achieved through staff training and staff recruitment to fill up important positions within FPFK. The recruitment process has been finalized. FPFK organized a learning forum, where all staff were trained on conflict sensitivity as cross-cutting issue to be mainstreamed in this intervention. Three project staffs were trained in mainstreaming conflict sensitivity during project implementation to enhance their ability to identify, assess, and mitigate conflict-related risks. The training covered key topics such as conflict sensitivity principles, understanding local conflict dynamics, and strategies for integrating conflict-sensitive approaches into project planning and execution. Through practical case studies and scenario analysis, participants gained a deeper understanding of how to apply these approaches in their roles. With the acquired knowledge and skills, the project has been able to identify potential sources of conflicts that could affect this intervention including, reshufling of project steering committees to avoid conflict of interests in water intervention. Participatory approaches were also considered in selection of water committee members, which was successfully done.