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Saturday, 31 May 2014

Climate change project unveiled in Laikipia County

By Bob Aston and Sam Nzioka
Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN) has begun a one year project implementation on climate change on behalf of Act! Change! Transform! (ACT). ALIN held a stakeholders consultative meeting at Beisa Hotel in Nanyuki town on May 28, 2014 to highlight and deliberate on climate change issues in the county and how it would partner with various stakeholders to effectively implement the project.
Speaking during the meeting Noah Lusaka, Project Manager-ALIN said that the main objective of the meeting was to brief other stakeholders about the project so that they can identify areas which they can work together and also learn from other stakeholders doing similar projects.
 “The Project will build the capacities of communities on a range of adaptation practices including water harvesting techniques and use of mobile irrigation technology for increased food production,” said Noah.
The project goal is to enhance community resilience to adapt to the impacts of climate change for improved livelihood in Kajiado, Baringo and Laikipia counties.
Noah  taking participants through the project
The objectives of the project are; To lobby for the development of climate change adaptation framework informed by National Climate Change Action Plan (NCCAP)/National Climate Change Response Strategy (NCCRS), to enhance communities capacity to adopt climate smart agricultural practices for improved livelihoods and to enhance communities access to usable information and knowledge on climate change adaptation for increased resilience.
The project is aimed at strengthening policy formulation infrastructure at national and county level. The project will tackle a number of issues to address inadequate community capacity and lack of access to appropriate information on climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies.
Noah said that the project will be underpinned by three key approaches which will include capacity building of partner communities and of ALIN, introduction and promotion of new climate smart agriculture technologies; documentation and dissemination of locally developed innovations; and knowledge management to ensure exchange of usable information and knowledge utilizing conventional and modern information and communication technologies (ICTs).
He said that the project is underpinned by three unique innovations as follows; The introduction of Mobile Irrigation Technology, use of bulk SMS to deliver timely and authoritative information to large numbers of farmers and Farm Records Management Information System (FARMIS-Kenya).
On her part Margaret Maina, Laikipia County Meteorological services Director thanked ALIN for holding the inception meeting. She said not many organizations hold such meetings thus leading to duplication of projects.
Margaret said that it is important for people to gather synergy and work together in order to address persistent change in weather pattern.
“Stakeholders should bring together resources and also work together for better development,” said Margaret.
The project will play a key role in lobbying for inclusion of climate change in County Integrated Development Plan (CIDP) and allocation of finances to support climate change.

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