Community groups help themselves to tackle climate change

Soil erosion scars the landscape in Kenya’s Nyando basin. Runoff from increasingly unpredictable rainfall and flash floods carves out deep gullies, carrying with it precious soil. Drought is becoming more frequent and more intense as climate change tightens its grip. Here, up to 17 per cent of households are unable to meet their food needs for three to four months a year and malnutrition affects 45 per cent of all children under five.

But in spite of the huge challenges facing this corner of western Kenya, where poverty, land degradation and lost labor due to HIV/AIDS are exacerbating problems caused by changing weather patterns, local communities are showing they are determined to find solutions.

Supported by extension agents, researchers and development partners, including the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), local communities have organized themselves into self-help groups to diversify crops and livestock, improve soil and water management and pool financial and labor resources.

The group-based approach to combating climate change was presented at the Dublin Hunger, Nutrition, Climate Justice conference last month, as an example of how local communities can make real advances to counter climate change and poverty.

A report highlighted at the Dublin conference explains how people in Lower Nyando have organized themselves into six self-help groups affiliated to a large umbrella community-based organization (CBO) called Friends of Katuk Odeyo (FOKO), in order to tackle the problems posed by poverty, labor shortage and a changing climate.

Women play a leading role in the initiatives, accounting for two out of 20 groups within FOKO and 70 per cent of the other groups. The idea has gained momentum and there are now three CBOs. In the Nyando basin, a total of 1,170 households belong to a self-help group, and 70 to 85 per cent of the active members are women.

Diversification and climate risk mitigation and adaptation have been at the heart of the strategy, enabling farmers to become more resilient. CCAFS and partners World Neighbors, the Swedish Cooperative Centre’s Vi Agroforestry program, the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) and the Kenya Ministries of Livestock Development and Agriculture are helping communities to explore new livelihood options to make their source of income and food production more secure. Interventions have included beekeeping – particularly suited to women with little access to land — improved small livestock production, such as goats, sheep and poultry and crop diversification, using improved practices and new crops including sorghum, pigeon peas, cowpeas, green grams and sweet potatoes. Young people have been introduced to horticulture, growing onions, tomatoes, butternuts and watermelons.

Linking diversification and mitigation

Integrating diversification with mitigation approaches, communities have been able to embark on agroforestry, which is helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the Nyando basin. To date, 22 tree nurseries have been set up, producing more than 50,000 high-quality tree seedlings and earning incomes for local people.

Improved land and water management using contour farming, terracing, composting and conservation agriculture is helping to improve soil moisture retention and reduce erosion. Community members have financed and built 40 new water storage pans and rehabilitated 12 others to collect valuable rainfall and use it during periods of drought.

Grouping together farmers, researchers, development partners and extension agents has proved a winning formula. So too has the participatory approach, which placed the onus on community members to identify and request information and services they really needed. The idea of linking the groups to umbrella CBOs has increased the power and reach of the self-help units. Each CBO has its own bank account and provides a critical lynchpin between individual groups and formal financial institutions such as banks and microfinance institutions.

Some of the results are highly tangible. By reducing their vulnerability to climate risks, local farmers have increased household incomes, food supply and the nutrition of family members, especially children. Greater crop and livestock productivity has led to more revenue, supplemented by extra income from new activities such as honey, chickens, eggs and tree seedlings.

Other advantages are more subtle. Group sharing of income, labor and other resources such as livestock offspring has enabled community members to invest in various income-generating activities. With support from development organizations and using group savings, some of the self-help groups have joined together to set up an agricultural supply shop, selling high quality inputs at affordable prices, as well as offering advice and credit.

Strategies targeting women have been particularly successful. In this conservative part of rural Kenya, women have few land tenure rights and little experience asserting themselves in a social context. With new incomes from activities such as beekeeping and poultry rearing, and new self-confidence from participation as active members of self-help groups, the women of Nyando now have a different outlook on their role and the contribution they can make.

Already several of the groups dominated by women are looking further afield, reports the study. Some of the beekeeping groups have joined other organizations, beyond the CBO where it all started. Their aim is to improve market access and increase their bargaining power still further, creating a valuable knock-on effect for their households and communities.

More information:
Empowering a local community to address climate risks and food insecurity in Lower Nyando, Kenya – full case study PDF (Macaloo, C, Recha, J, Radeny, M, Kinyangi, J)
Innovation matchmaking links climate innovators (CCAFS)
Hunger, Nutrition, Climate Justice conference (Irish Aid)
Climate Smart Practices in East Africa (CCAFS)
Investigating climate information services through a gendered lens (CCAFS)

Photo: K. Trautmann/CCAFS