Grassroots women and girls resilience to the impacts of climate change: Climate change exacerbates gender inequalities, and gender inequality undermines the ability to adapt to and mitigate climate change risks as well as build resilience. Climate change increases women’s and girls’ vulnerability to gender-based violence, unpaid care work, forced migration, armed conflict, and other harmful practices. We believe that grassroots women and girls are not just victims of climate change impacts but also change agents who have invented innovations and strategies for coping with and mitigating climate change risks; hence, they must be engaged in climate policy, climate finance, and climate action. Gender and climate justice are intimately intertwined.
GROOTS Kenya in partnership with CISP, Nature Kenya and Procarsur and in collaboration with NDMA is implementing a 3.5-year, European Union-funded project titled REBUILD―Community Resilience Building in Livelihood and Disaster Risk Management ―in Tana River County. The overall objective of the project is to contribute towards increased resilience of communities in ASAL areas of Kenya to drought and other effects of climate change. More specifically, the project seeks to enhance food and nutrition security of vulnerable households, especially for women and children, and generate sustainable livelihoods and protect productive assets in Tana River County.
GROOTS Kenya in June 2021 entered into an agreement with Seed Change through the funding of Global Affairs Canada to implement a 6 years “Rural Women Cultivating Change (RWCC)” project in Kenya. At the country level, GROOTS Kenya works in collaboration with Seed Savers and HIVOs. The project has three components;
Enhanced and more systematic engagement of and by young and adult rural women in public leadership and transformative decision-making processes including women’s and farmers’ rights and climate adaptation
Strengthened prevention of and response to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) by individuals (f/m) and state/civil society actors
Enhanced engagement of young and adult women in climate-resilient food production systems and income generating activities.
GROOTS Kenya is implementing the project in Kitui and Laikipia Counties
GROOTS Kenya partnered with Diakonia, Christian Impact Mission (CIM), and the Anglican Development Services (ADS) in implementing a climate change project in Baringo County titled Gender and climate change. The project’s main objective is to build a socially and economically empowered rural women through climate change resilience in Baringo County, specifically in Tiaty Sub County. GROOTS Kenya is targeting an estimated 410 direct beneficiaries (70% women and female youth and 30% Men and male youth) mostly in Tiaty Sub-County. To achieve this, GROOTS Kenya's main activities include conducting gender audits to analyze the power relations in the households, holding dialogues on gender inequalities, offering psychosocial support to survivors of insecurity, developing climate change champions, and mapping and prioritizing climate change advocacy issues in the county in the first year of the implementation.
The main objective of this project is to mainstream cooking policy frameworks and advocate for increased budget allocation for the implementation of clean cooking programs. The long term goal of the project is to contribute to improved service provision by the government and private sector through inclusive policies and budgets and to facilitate an enabling environment for increased adoption of clean cook stores and fuels in Kenya.
Partner – SNV (Netherlands Development Organization)
Beneficiaries –Kitui, Kilifi and Kiambu Counties.
The goal of this project was to reduce poverty, improve food security, and reduce natural resource degradation for more than 3,600 women in Kenyan smallholder farm households through piloting climate-smart agricultural approaches using innovative information services in different parts of Kenya.
The project purposed to train 3,600 women farmers and farm families on using information on climate-smart agricultural technologies, practices, and principles for increased resilience to the potentially adverse impacts of climate change which would contribute to closing gendered yield gaps, enhanced equity and inclusion.
GROOTS Kenya successfully promoted the adoption of Zai pits and drip irrigation, and pioneered community-based data collection, which would be used to monitor progress in the number of farm households reached in this project.
Donor: BMZ (Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit) which is The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development
Target Counties: Busia, Laikipia, NakuruProject Participants;
We operated in multiple counties, including Busia (Bunyala and Teso North sub-counties) with a direct reach of 350 households and an indirect reach of 800 households, Laikipia (Laikipia East and West) with 500 households directly and 1,050 households indirectly, and Nakuru (Molo and Kuresoi North sub-counties) with 400 households directly and 500 households indirectly.
GROOTS Kenya with support from SNV in 2016, implemented the Voices for Change Programme that aimed at strengthening the capacities of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to advocate for an enabling environment in Renewable Energy. GROOTS Kenya helped relevant County Governments to mainstream clean cooking in County policy frameworks and steered advocacy for increased budget allocation for the implementation of clean cooking programs.
Throughout the duration of the project, Clean cooking champions from 40 wards in Kitui were identified to lobby policymakers to achieve the project goal. Additionally, the champions are also taking the lead in advocating for the adoption of clean cooking technologies among fellow community members either by constructing clean cook stoves for them or by linking them to other institutions that could facilitate the construction or purchase of clean cookstoves.
The project sought to improve working conditions and incomes for miners by providing mine sites from Kakamega and Migori Counties with access to finance, technical training and markets.
Through the project GROOTS Kenya enabled groups to invest in enhanced, cleaner extractive and processing equipment, reducing reliance on mercury and increasing the recovery of gold. Offered Technical training that focused on formalization and responsible production and, finally, a route to market was pioneered for responsibly mined gold to reach export markets.
Donor: The European Partnership for Responsible Minerals (EPRM)
Target Counties: Kakamega, Migori
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