Presentation at the policy roundtable in Kenya, February 2012. http://www.future-agricultures.org/climate-change/7664-policy-dialogue-climate-chaos-policy-dilemma-in-kenya

1. Climate chaos, policy dilemmas
Immaculate Maina, Michael Okoti
and Andrew Newsham

2. Outline
Section I: Introduction
• What is climate change
• Potential direct impacts on agricultural sector
• Climate change and policy
• Global challenges to addressing climate change
Section II: Climate change and agriculture in Kenya
• Rationale of the study
• Theoretical and analytical framework
• Actor and actor networks
• Narratives
• Politics
• Important policy spaces
• Conclusions and recommendations

3. WHAT IS CLIMATE CHANGE
UNFCC - “a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly
to human activity that alters the composition of the global
atmosphere and which is in addition to natural variability observed
over comparable time periods.”
Manifestations
• Changes in temperature regimes
• Changing rainfall patterns
• Changing wind patterns
• Floods
• Droughts
• Cyclones

4. Climate change and agriculture
Why agriculture..
“…. is part of the climate change problem, contributing about 13.5
percent of annual GHGs (with forestry contributing an additional 19
percent), compared with 13.1 percent from transportation.
Agriculture is, however, also part of the solution, offering
promising opportunities for mitigating emissions through carbon
sequestration, soil and land use management, and biomass
production”.
Global agriculture - under significant pressure to meet the demands
of rising populations using limited resources - further stressed by
the impact of climate change.

6. Responses to global climate change
Climate change and its impacts on ecosystems and socio-economic
systems - prompted two types of policy responses:
a) Aimed at reducing net emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) in
order to slow or stop climate change - “mitigation” of climate
change
b) Addresses the social systems, economic sectors and communities
affected by climate change (rather than those contributing to it) -
“adaptation”

7. A. Mitigation
Measures
 reduce the amount of emissions (abatement)
 enhance the absorption capacity of greenhouse gases
(sequestration)
Emission sources - fertilizer application, livestock and manure
management, rice cultivation, and savanna burning
Sequestration - “best” management practices in agriculture that raise
Soil Organic Carbon - restoring degraded soils, improving pastures
and grazing land, crop and forage rotation, and no-tillage practices
The economic potential for mitigation in agriculture depends on the
price of carbon, policy and institutional support, and transaction cost
constraints – feasibility for Kenya?.

8. Example: Conservation agriculture as a mitigation
measure
3 components minimal mechanical soil disturbance (i.e. no tillage,
direct seeding); maintenance of soils mulch (crop residues, cover
crops); rotations or sequences and associations of crops including
trees (nitrogen-fixing legumes).
a) Increase in soil organic matter - reduces vulnerability to both
excessive rainfall and drought
b) Soil under zero-tillage - increase the soil organic matter content by
approx 0.1 to 0.2% per year - formation of 1 cm of new soil over a
ten-year period.
c) Facilitate soil structuring - filtration and storage of water in the soil
d) Directly absorbs up to 150m3 of water per hectare for each
percent of soil organic matter
e) No soil moisture is lost through tillage and seedbed preparation.

9. B. Adaptation
IPCC - “adjustment in natural or human systems in response to
experienced or future climatic conditions or their effects or impacts
– which may be beneficial or adverse”
Huq et al. (2003): “Adaptation to climate change includes all
adjustments in behavior and economic structure that reduce the
vulnerability of society to changes in the climate system.”
“Mitigation alone will not avoid serious impacts of climate change on
development. The demands on adaptation will be very large. Future
vulnerability will depend more on development pathways than on
climate change. Sustainable development is both a necessary and a
sufficient condition for confronting climate change”. IPCC

10. Categories of adaptation
Autonomous
 Action undertaken by individuals, households and businesses
without direct intervention of public agencies
 Takes the form of a response to already obvious climate impacts
 Initiatives by private actors - triggered by market or welfare
changes - induced by actual or anticipated climate change
Planned (or policy-driven)
 Measures that result from deliberate policy-decisions - minimize
losses or benefit from opportunities
 Associated with public actors or government
 Reactive - in response to actual climate impacts e.g. relief
food distribution, livestock off-take??
 Anticipatory - undertaken before climate impacts are felt e.g.
development of dams to check on floods

11. Examples of autonomous and planned adaptation
Autonomous adaptation Planned adaptation
Short run adjustments e.g. Developing greater understanding of
changing planting dates climate risks – carrying out climatic
risks and vulnerability assessments
Spreading the loss e.g. Improve emergency response –
commodity insurance implementing early warning systems
Localized irrigation on farms Investing in infrastructure – large
reservoir storage, increased drainage
capacity
Migration Research – breeding crops and
livestock
Avoiding the impacts – land use
planning – restrict development in
areas of increased aridity or
floodplains

12. CLIMATE CHANGE AND POLICY
Policy - constitutes the decisions taken by those with responsibility for a
given policy area, and these decisions usually take the form of
statements or formal positions on an issue, which are then executed by
the systems of government”
“The need for policy intervention (planned adaptation) is defined by the
extent to which private actors (autonomous adaptation) are able to
reduce negative impacts from climate change and the related costs”
“Policy-makers have a crucial role to play in creating the institutional,
policy, legal and regulatory frameworks necessary to enable and
incentivize significant mitigation options”
“The right mix of well-designed policies including regulations and
economic instruments can overcome economic, technological,
informational and behavioural barriers in the marketplace”
“Adaptation is not a stand-alone activity, and its integration into
development projects, plans, policies, and strategies will be crucial ”

13. Examples of adaptation options and possible policy
support
Adaptation option Policy support
Crop/livestock diversification to Availability of extension services,
increase productivity and protect financial support
against diseases
Modernization of farm Promote adoption of
operations technologies
Permanent migration to diversify Education and training
income opportunities
Efficient water use Water pricing reforms, defined
property rights
Develop market efficiency Invest in rural infrastructure,
remove market barriers, property
rights

14. GLOBAL CHALLENGES IN ADDRESSING CLIMATE CHANGE
a. Limited planning data e.g. literature on costs and benefit of
adaptation or mitigation - limited and fragmented (sectoral and
regional coverage)
b. Limited/lack of finances
c. Incoherent policy structures
d. Weak institutions
e. Poverty
f. Compartmentalization within government structures – ‘silos’
g. Sectoral segmentation within development cooperation
agencies – limited manpower, limited funding for anticipatory
adaptation

15. SECTION II

16. Climate change issues in Kenya
• Droughts, floods, increased temperatures,
highly variable rainfall amounts and
distribution
– the vulnerable in rural areas that are most affected
– the predominant livelihood strategies for most of
these people are derived from forests or mixed
fishing; pastoral and agro-pastoral; marginal mixed
farming; high-potential mixed farming; cash
cropping or irrigated cropping and wage labour
• Thus, agriculture and climate change are
intrinsically intertwined phenomena in Kenya

17. On-going efforts to deal with impacts
of CC
• The overaching National Climate Change
Response Strategy (NCCRS)
– Different complex policy and decision-making
processes at different layers from the local to the
global level with a large number of actors with
specific differing interests involved

18. CC and agriculture
• What is the unfolding climate change policy
process as it relates to the agriculture sector?
• What policies are in place to deal with CC
consequences for the more than 80% of Kenya’s
population that live in the rural areas and who
derive their livelihoods from agriculture?
– The Agriculture Sector Ministries (ASMs) are yet to
develop a comprehensive policy document to deal
with climate change issues, however their activities
and interventions are aligned to the NCCRS

19. Activities and interventions in
agricultural sector (I)
• Increasing agricultural productivity and incomes
• Encouraging value addition
• Promoting indigenous and more drought tolerant food
crops like cassava, millet, sorghum and sweet
potatoes
• Encouraging private-sector-led development of the
sector
• Ensuring environmental sustainability
• Rain-fed agriculture with growing experimentation
and expansion of the irrigated systems
• Enhancing early warning systems and methods of
communicating to downscale climate information to
rural populations

20. Activities and interventions in
agricultural sector (II)
• Research and Development efforts (R&D) in integrated
pest management systems
• Crop and livestock insurance
• Enhancing agricultural extension services
• Developing proper food storage facilities
• Regular vaccination campaigns as well as cross border
disease surveillance
• Research and Development efforts (R&D) in integrated
pest management systems
• Crop and livestock insurance
• Enhancing agricultural extension services
• Regular vaccination campaigns as well as cross border
disease surveillance

21. Activities and interventions in
agricultural sector (III)
• Early Warning Systems on droughts, floods and disease
outbreaks
• Identification and establishment of fodder banks
• Development of water resources, especially in the arid
lands
• Creating awareness among the pastoralist
communities on stocking rates
• Application of agricultural technologies limiting green
house gas (GHG) emissions
• Proper management of agricultural waste
• Improved crop production practices including
promotion of inter-cropping, promotion of organic
farming and also implementation of the national
domestic biogas project

22. Rationale of the study
• To analyse the ongoing policy debates on climate
change and agriculture
– taking into account the alternative adaptation and
mitigation pathways for the agricultural sector and
how these are reflected in government plans (at
different scales).
• To re-examine the on-going, planned and
projected actions in the agricultural sector in
light of the goings on, namely;
– the proposed actions and views emanating from the
recently concluded COP 17
– the development of the action plan for
implementation of the National Climate Change
Response Strategy

23. Research questions
• What are the key narratives on climate change among
agricultural sector actors in Kenya, and what are the
associated actors and political processes?
• What are the key policy spaces in which important
decisions relating to climate policy on agriculture are
made and how are they likely to unfold in future?
• What are the implications of the narratives for action
on the ground in the agricultural sector?
– Expected output: To contribute to the ongoing policy
engagement (to reframe and broaden the debate) by
examining the dominant narrative(s) and the driver(s) for
that dominance

24. Theoretical and analytical framework
• Knowledge and discourse.
What is the ‘policy
narrative’?
• Actors and networks. Who
is involved and how they
are connected?
• Politics and interests.
What are the underlying
power dynamics?
Source: Adapted from Keeley and
Scoones (2003) and Gaventa
(2006)

25. Results
ACTORS AND ACTOR NETWORKS

26. Actors and actor networks: Schematic representation

27. Actors and actor networks
• There is a wide range of actors, actor
networks and institutions in Kenya all dealing
with impacts of climate variability and
climate change
How do the various actors and actor networks
delineate their roles and responsibilities,
determine their agenda and plans, and position
themselves in the regulatory and implementation
frameworks of climate change policy process?

28. Major climate change and
agriculture actions
• Development of appropriate policy and legal
environment
• Building resilience of communities to climate
shocks
• Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions
(NAMAs)
• Sensitization, awareness creation and capacity
building
Climate change issues present a two-pronged
approach – adaptation and mitigation. Which of
these two is most urgent, and/or most beneficial
and therefore worth focusing limited resources
on?

29. OVERARCHING NARRATIVES

30. Adaptation mechanisms to improve the
food security situation (I)
Main adaptation strategies proposed:
• Promotion of drought tolerant and disease
and pest resistance crops- cassava, millets,
cowpeas or green grams
• Livestock: small ruminants and dairy farming
• Soil and Water management
• Conservation agriculture (CA)
• Production of bio-fuels or food production

31. Awareness creation and sensitization
(II)
• Enhanced capacities and knowledge of the dynamics of
climate change will increase peoples’ adaptive capacities
and reduce their exposure to risks, making them less
vulnerable
• Many workshops in this regard have been held and
continue to be planned.
• Many these workshops target technocrats in key
government sectors
 Will this top-down approach of dissemination yield the
intended results?
 What information is informing the discussions around climate
change adaptation and mitigation?
 What are the mechanisms for the transfer of the knowledge
and information acquired in these workshops downstream to
the farming communities who need it most?

32. Capacity building (III)
• Implementing the NCCRS requires new
capabilities
Need for relevant technical knowledge in
computational skills for modelling and
downscaling large scale datasets to fit into small
regions
Climate change being a new disciplinary area
means that Kenya does not have a critical mass of
persons with the necessary skills of knowledge in
this area
The capacity of climate change desk officers need
to be strengthened

33. Energy as a key factor for agricultural
development (IV)
• To increase the national electricity grid and to
drive the economy on a low-carbon
trajectory, focus on other forms of power such
as geothermal power, solar or wind power -
enable the country to adapt to climate change
and mitigate emissions
However, access to electricity does not necessarily
translate into connectivity of households to the
national grid
Connectivity seems a socio-economic issue
Perhaps in developing new energy sources, the focus
could be towards community power plants that
communities can own and earn from

34. Financing climate change (I)
Climate change support - new money, additional and adequate
• UNFCCC special loans for CDM projects - Least Developed
Countries (LDCs) vs. countries most vulnerable to climate
change impacts
• The Adaptation fund
• The Green fund
• GEF funds on biodiversity, climate change and agriculture
• Donors: UNDP, FAO, Rockefeller Foundation, DANIDA, the
European Union, IDRC, UNEP, World Bank , the Danish
Government and other donors fund various civil society
groups in Kenya

35. Financing climate change (II)
• Funds allocation to climate change - Accessibility to funds
and funds allocation within government ministries is
guided by the planning processes in the various ministries.
 However, it was conceived that when it comes to
allocation of the funds to the various sectors, politics
and interests play a critical role
• Donor interests verses national priorities - International
pressure, policies and politics were viewed as influencing
government allocation of funds on issues surrounding
climate change

36. POLITICS

37. Influential actors for climate change and
agriculture
• All Ministries, especially the Agricultural Sector Ministries
• The Ministry is represented in all District Agricultural
Committees (DACs). The District Agricultural Officer (DAO) who
chairs the DAC is influential in reaching decisions that affect the
grassroots levels.
• Ministry of Environment
 as the driver of the implementation of the NCCRS
 Director of Bilateral Arrangements at the Ministry of
Environment
• The office of the Prime Minister (OPM)
• NGOs especially those lobbying at the national level
• The donor community

38. Important policy spaces
• Climate Change Desk and related Climate Coordination Units within
government line ministries
• The ministerial stakeholder forums of line sector
• The District Agricultural Committees
• Farmers’ forums that feed into the DACs - they capture grassroots voices
in the policy making processes
• The Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) - Climate Coordination Unit (CCU)
advises the government on climate change issues
• The Inter-ministerial Consultative Forum on Climate Change coordinated
from the OPM
• NGO forums, such as the Kenya Climate Change Working Group (KCCWG)
• The Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA)
• The Donor Coordination Unit international politics also play a great role in
determining

39. Conclusions and recommendations
• More awareness creation
 Knowledge creation – knowledge that is Kenyan and
agriculture-based
 Development of mechanisms for sharing knowledge –
 less reliant on “technical fixes” and more embracing of
experiential local knowledge
• More coordination between the many actors –
allow for a stronger local voice and not
international interests
• Embrace the complexity and uncertainty that
surrounds policy making – effective management
of bottom-up and top-down feedback loops

40. MITIGATION
• “The REDD process poses the danger of
restricting small scale farmers because these
farmers are considered the main agents of
degradation. This is not withstanding the
activities undertaken by big concessions in
mining and logging for example Tiomin in the
Coast Province.”

41. COORDINATION
“Climate change is not a few organizations’/individuals’ responsibility, everybody
should be involved and hence it’s not easy to pin point and give the responsibility
to few entities. It is very important though that stakeholders focus on what they
are strong in – adaptation or mitigation or science or policy. But on the other hand
the government should put in place sound policies and implementation framework
that must be adhered to. Information should be shared correctly. Currently many
players in climate change have their own agenda and they share part of the
information that plays to their objectives. Some of the so-called awareness
creation is borne out of self-interest - some of it aligning to specific funding. More
efforts should be given in correlating cause and effect when it comes to climate
change and agriculture. There is need for sound scientific data or evidence to guide
our activities nationally. Most of the responses are based on perceptions and not
on what the real issues are. The climate change desk officers need to be
strengthened to address CC issues in their various sectors. This should apply also to
agriculture being a main sector that is more vulnerable to CC and also key to the
economic development of the nation.”

42. FINANCES
“Generally I think that funds allocation is guided by
the planning process at the various ministries. The
work plans submitted are then moderated at the
treasury before the funds are allocated; this is at the
national level. But on the other hand, when it comes
to allocation of the funds at the various sector levels
(e.g. agriculture, energy, and water e.t.c), politics and
selfishness plays a critical role. Hence though at the
national level plans everything may look rosy, during
implementation the picture is different.”

43. FINANCES
“What is really challenging is that most of these programmes are
project oriented, when a project is being designed a lot of actors are
considered because the donor has what they want as outcomes and
the implementing organization, has the needs of the people. I believe
projects funded have to some extent a compromise of the issues
involved, that’s why it would really be important for organizations to
be either self sufficient or get funding from the government for
sustainability. Because different donors have different interests,
different technologies, different ideas and agendas that they are
going to push. So you cannot implement something based on what
you really think or on the reality on the ground. It is based on what
they can fund; most of the money out there is limited to the donor
interest. That is why we have been operating in these vicious cycles of
projects; even farmers are used to projects.”

44. POLITICS
“Efforts on the ground on climate change seem to be
ad-hoc and opportunistic – many are not aware
exactly what climate change is, the impacts, linkages
e.tc.”
“It seems the government of Kenya walks a tight rope
between attracting foreign investments and the
impacts that such investments may have on the
environment including aggravating degradation and
deforestation.”

45. THANK YOU