One of the greatest
challenge African agriculture is facing in my opinion is climate change which
cuts across all of a country’s economic sectors. Our country (like many others
in the developing world) has very little human technical expertise in this
emerging environmental field. In
government systems, a critical lack of capacity brings into question their
resulting climate change strategies whose decision making is not driven to
achieve public good but rather their personal interests. Donors who avail
climate adaptation funding ultimately determine where and how their money will
be spent leaving poor developing countries with little choice about it.
The effects of climate
change are most adverse in agriculture – crops, livestock, fisheries and
forestry – where a majority of our poor segment of the populace derives its
livelihood. Yet such poor countries like Kenya are at a greater risk both in
terms of exposure to climatic changes and sensitivity to such changes as well
as in terms of their low capacity and means to govern a changing climate. These
challenges are being exacerbated by the fact that there exists no specific
climate change policy for any of the economic sectors. Only the National
Climate Change Response Strategy of 2010 and most recently in March 2013, the
National Climate Change Action Plan exist. Nonetheless, a draft policy Bill is
currently in circulation. This situation is allowing powerful actors to shape
the climate agenda and activities in the country with possible adverse local
implications on resource poor farmers and pastoralists (Future Agricultures
Consortium (FAC), 2013). The risk here is that the anticipated climate
adaptation funding may benefit those close to the policy makers rather than the
most vulnerable.
While it is being more
and more recognized that climate change is affecting agriculture in diverse
ways, across much of sub-Saharan Africa, governments often resort to knee jerk
reactions when the impacts of climate change manifest. At the international
level in the climate change negotiations, African countries have a lower
influence and say in the debate and they have tried to change this by forming
the The Africa Group, a coalition of African states which looks out for the
continent. Whereas negotiating as a regional bloc has increased their
bargaining power on issues considered critical to them especially political and
financial support for their adaptation interventions and technology, there will
still be winners and losers depending on the outcome at the negotiating
table.
As the climate debate
in Africa is a relatively new development theme that donors seem to be more and
more interested in, some organizations and agencies are now claiming their
activities seek to “build resilience of the vulnerable poor and marginalized”
principally in order to cash in on the anticipated donor climate funds (FAC,
2013). This has been exacerbated by the fact that the expected outcome and
objective of climate action – resilience – is fast becoming the new agenda of
many of the world’s bi- and multi-lateral agencies such as UNDP, USAID, DFID,
WFP, IDRC, the EU and UNICEF just to mention a few. Also not left behind in
this new paradigm shift are a growing number of well known non-governmental
organizations including Oxfam, MercyCorps, CARE International, World Vision,
etc. who have adopted resilience as being at the heart of their development
objectives. However, no one has so far developed a widely accepted measure of
what resilience really is and most importantly its measurable indicators among
the most climate change vulnerable communities.
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