Let's move away from mitigation measures and teach communities how to cope

Victor Bwire, Head of Media Development and Strategy at the Media Council of Kenya. [File, Standard]

It has taken time but it's happening. People from communities around Lake Victoria have accepted the reality that climate change impacts their activities and that food production -- from fishing to farming -- must take a different direction.

Climate change interventions in the region must move away from the strong focus on mitigation measures that worked in the initial stages like building dykes, moving people and bringing relief food. Interventions should now be related to helping the communities enhance their capacity and resilience to cope with the effects of climate change.

Interestingly, the National Land Commission in Kenya has started a process of mapping and giving a price to the natural resources in the country, and hopefully, this will answer the question for those pursuing the damage and compensation discussion in the larger climate change governance debate.

Groups such as the Nile Basin Initiative through the Nile Equatorial Lakes Subsidiary Action Plan (NELSAP) through their various studies and projects have called for the need for more intensified community resilience interventions to deal with the destructions brought about by climate change in the region.

A few projects have been initiated by development partners and the private sector including water management, hydro elector power projects, construction of dams, early warning and engineering economic projects to transform the livelihoods of the local communities away from the traditional approaches that have become vulnerable.

For example, the NELSAP supported Angololo Dam through the Sio-Malaba-Malakisi water project covering Busia and Bungoma Counties in Kenya and Tororo District in Uganda. The development projects are meant to spur urban growth that will come with infrastructural development including roads, schools, shopping centres, electricity, and value-addition factories from farm produce to ensure communities cope.

Kenya passed the climate change Act 2106 and the Fisheries Management and Development Act 2015 and has several laws and policies to promote green growth and blue economies in across the country as we struggle to deal with the adverse effects of climate change.

Additionally, we have the Environmental Management and Coordination (Amendment) Act 2015, Vision 2030, Energy Act 2012 and Green Economic Strategy and Implementation Plan (GESIP) 2016-2030, which is a signatory to SDGs- SDG 12 focuses on responsible consumption and production and promotes the principles of reduce, re-use and recycle and Paris Climate Change Agreement, to which she is a signatory.

-Mr Bwire is the Head of Media Development and Strategy at the Media Council of Kenya.