Assessing governance for climate smart landscapes: A case from Makueni County, Kenya Enoch On(ri and Lance W Robinson Interna'onal Livestock Research Ins'tute
Introduc<on Among the obstacles to achieving climate smart agriculture are low levels of organiza'onal capacity, land use and tenure pa?erns, and upstream-‐downstream interac'ons within agr icultural watersheds, to name a few. We understand these obstacles as being primarily challenges of governance.
We assessed the organiza'ons, formal and informal ins'tu'ons, networks and decision making procedures which together cons'tute the governance system for the Middle-‐Kai' landscape in Makueni County, Kenya.
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Lance Robinson [email protected] ● Box 30709 Nairobi, Kenya ● +254 20 422 3000 ● ilri.org This project was funded by CCAFS
This document is licensed for use under a Crea've Commons A?ribu'on –Non commercial-‐Share Alike 3.0 Unported License March 2015
March 2015
Steps in the Assessment
1. In
i<al System
Analysis
1A. Decide on Level of Analysis
1B. Stakeholder Analysis
1C. Iden'fy and Priori'ze Change Adapta'on Issues
2. Iden<fica<on of Governance Issues & Mechanisms
3. Iden<fica<on of Relevant Policies & Policy Issues
4. Assessment of Par<cular Governance Mechanisms
5. Assessment of the Ins<tu<onal System
Governance for Climate Smart Landscapes Ø Takes place beyond the bounds of any
single organiza'on or ins'tu'on Ø Needs effec've governance systems
Ins<tu<onal Linkages Ø WRUAs and CFAs are pivotal actors in the governance
system at landscape level.
Ø But they lack resources and poli'cal support. Ø Linkages among CFAs and WRUAs have been poor but
are now improving rapidly.
Ø Linkages to governance actors at higher levels, especially at the County, are poor.
Ø Different actors in the system have different strengths in terms of accountability, ability to generate resources, access to knowledge, etc.
Ø Appropriate ins'tu'onal linkages which could help to achieve complementarity among these strengths are lacking or very weak.
Ø As a result, the governance system has li?le capacity for addressing adapta'on challenges in an effec've and holis'c way.
Government processes for ins6tu6on building, community-‐based natural resource manage-‐ment and land use planning could have a great impact if they help to establish linkages, ver6cally and horizontally, among key organiza6ons and ins6tu6ons.
Next Steps Ø Similar case studies from Ethiopia and Senegal are
forthcoming
Ø Future research will connect these studies on landscape level governance to governance and policy processes at na'onal level
Adapta<on and the Landscape Ø Key governance actors on these issues: a
Community Forest Associa'on (CFA) and a Water Resource Users Associa'on (WRUA)
Ø These considera'ons together suggested a par'cular landscape defini'on informed both by watershed boundaries and by the areas of opera(on of these organiza(ons
Ø We assessed the emergent governance system for this landscape
Adapta<on Challenges at the Site Ø Illegal use/poor manage-‐
ment of dwindl ing re-‐sources
Ø Soil erosion, including gully erosion
Ø Declining availability of water
Ø These challenges are inter-‐connected through forest management and land use pa?erns
The communica'on [between the CFA and the WRUA] has been quite okay…. CFA used to work alone and WRUA alone but this 'me round now is when we want to work together because, WRUA cannot work without CFA. -‐ An execu(ve of KAMUKIMA CFA
So I must say the ini'al mee'ngs were not that easy, because I realised some people in WRUAs didn’t understand what CFAs are, some people in CFAs didn’t understand what WRUAs are. Then they were blaming each other: some were saying the people in CFA are the ones who destroyed the catchment.
-‐ An NGO leader
