Goal: To enhance the capacity and resilience of urban slum dwellers in Kenya to mitigate environment and climate change hazards
Environment and climate change affect all aspects of human life, if well preserved; it has the potential to transform lives of millions of populations around the world. If not well preserved, it can be very unforgiving and punish an entire human generation as the late Prof. Wangari Maathai once observed. This is why environment and climate change have informed the formulation of global development plans over centuries. The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have identified a number of goals, which directly inform environment and climate change interventions by governments and communities around the world. These include:
- Goal 13 : Take Urgent Action to Combat Climate Change and Its Impacts.
- Goal 6 : Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
- Goal 11 : Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable
- Goal 15 : Protect, restore, and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
- Goal 17 : Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable developments.
The Constitution of Kenya (2010) obligates the government to ensure environmental sustainability under Article 69. Achieving this requires a legal and policy framework that engages state and non-state actors in environment and climate change mitigation. Communities living in urban slums in Kenya are more exposed to the vagaries of environment and climate change injustices. This is why strong community eco-watch groups play a fundamental role in building their capacities and resilience to mitigate environment and climate change hazards while taking advantage of associated economic opportunities. Communities around Dandora Municipal Dumpsite in Nairobi for example have been seriously affected by the activities undertaken at the facility. At the same time, innovative interventions among a section of the stakeholders at the dumpsite such as white charcoal makers have demonstrated that ‘Takaa ni dhahabu’ (waste is gold).
Kutoka Network’s environment and climate change department therefore seeks to minimize the negative effects of environmental degradation while empowering communities to get value from positive use of environment and climate change opportunities:
