Civic education key in locally-led climate action

Climate change has seen farmers experience long periods of drought. [Christopher Kipsang, Standard]

I first had a brush with hunger in 1994, when it became prestige to have three meals a day. While we never slept hungry, of course balancing diet after days, for many, even a meal a day was a struggle, especially in homes where birth control was a myth.

We had been in Nyanza for barely two years after tribal/land clashes pushed us out of Rift Valley. We were adapting to hotter days and newer diets. We fell ill more often, courtesy of nutritional and environmental changes.

There was more. It was never news when one's hen strayed into a neighbour's compound never to return; people just fought. Hyenas got into pens in the dead of night and killed livestock. Sometimes the hyenas laughed so loud, it was scary. A snake would be lying beneath a sofa in the morning, having eaten an equally thirsty frog. Snake bites, some fatal, were common. 

Families sought God to return rain patterns to normal. Meanwhile, trees were felled and sand harvested from rivers, for sale. The situation is not better, with flooding, diseases, erosion, reduced harvest and hunger. The planting season is no longer certain. God is still being blamed.

Climate change not only manifests itself through disasters but subsequently causes destabilisation of the economy, loss of lives and income, damage to property and infrastructure, human/wildlife conflict, diseases and migration, destabilising families' social fabric while children on the move miss school. These are not new phenomena in Kenya, but it is also here that many have resigned to fate for they know not what really is going on.

The government needs to put more resources in capacity building on the climate crisis. Locally-led climate action, for which Kenya has just landed a Sh16.7 billion World Bank grant, will yield better results with literacy and enhance the masses' ability to respond and adapt. This should target all; young, old, poor most vulnerable to elitists and policymakers.

With the crisis right at the door, we cannot afford to shoot in the dark. Responding from a point of knowledge is key. People must understand how they contribute to the climate crisis, and the impacts of their actions. They also need to know who owes them what in this whole mess and demand it. It is from a point of knowledge that opportunities for income while addressing the crisis will be identifiable and the right groups targeted.

A 2018 survey by Afrobarometer placed "average national climate change literacy rate" in Africa at 37 per cent. Kenya could be doing better on climate literacy, but let's improve it. Let the masses pray; but also know best ways to adapt. Knowledge is power.

Lynet Otieno (Pictured) is Quality Assurance Editor at Standard Group.