CUTS held the 7th and last National Reference Group (NRG) meeting under the project Promoting Agriculture-Climate-Trade linkages in the East African Community (PACT-EAC) on April 14, 2015 at the Hilton Hotel in Nairobi.
CUTS held the 7th and last National Reference Group (NRG) meeting under the project Promoting Agriculture-Climate-Trade linkages in the East African Community (PACT-EAC) on April 14, 2015 at the Hilton Hotel in Nairobi.
The meeting took stock of the policy and practice impacts of the PACT-EAC project. By bringing policy makers from relevant ministries and stakeholders together, the project has managed to inform, train and move hundreds into advocacy action. An independent evaluation released last year credited the project for inspiring linkages between policies at the national level as well as triggering over 30 local initiatives that promote similar linkages.
As part of the project’s advocacy campaign, CUTS Nairobi facilitated farmers’ engagement with policy makers and experts to enhance climate change early warning system in Murang’a and Makueni counties. At the meeting, respective county officials informed the audience the process and results of this initiative. It was also indicated that KMS has started downscaling weather information that is readily consumable both in terms of content and language. In line with PACT-EAC advocacy campaign ‘forewarned, forearmed’, presentations from the two counties revealed that the respective KMS offices are ensuring weather information is early and accurate.
During the meeting, Makueni officials announced the launch of a weather communications programme. It was interesting to learn about their newly developed local Dictionary for weather and climate change related terminologies to facilitate understanding and uptake during the down scaling process of climate change information system as a result of the campaign. Similarly Murang’a County led by the Chief executive member for Agriculture and the Director of Metrological Services outlined their county plan in terms of actions and resources a head of the launch of weather information programme at the county.
Besides taking stock of the project’s impacts, participants were briefed on current international negotiations on climate and trade issues.
Mr. Fredrick Matwang’a, Kenya’s WTO Delegate in Geneva, briefed the audience on the state of negotiations towards a post-Bali work programme. He indicated that the success of the 10th Ministerial Conference that will be held in Nairobi in December will be determined by the success of the post-Bali work programme.
Ms. Fatima Hussien, the Acting Director of the National Climate Change Secretariat, briefed participants on the state of play of international policy on climate change. She indicated that the priorities for the 21st yearly session of the Conference of Parties (COP21) and the 11th session of the Meeting of the Parties (CMP11) are ‘The 2015 Agreement’ (Workstream1) and ‘The pre-2020 Ambition’ (Workstream2). She indicated that COP21/CMP11, which will be held in Paris end of 2015, is crucial because it is going to result in a legally binding agreement.
The event ended with the release of a study on ‘Climate, Food, and Trade: Analysis of Institutional Interplay and Information Exchange-Kenya’. The study revealed that the interaction of stakeholders, that is the private sector, civil society, farmers and their groups and relevant ministries on issues of food security, climate and trade is relatively stronger at the county level while the interaction of these stakeholders with the national government is weaker. The study urges for the need to strengthen existing programmes like the Agriculture Sector Development Support Programme for effective inter-institutional and stakeholder collaboration.