Alliance of Bioversity International/CIAT collaboration with the Adaptation Consortium (ADA): Evaluating the conflict sensitivity of the County Climate Change Fund (CCCF) Mechanism

The interface of climate change, conflict, and peace is fraught with complexity and place-specific contingency. Climate impacts may, for instance, increase the risk of competition and conflict (primarily indirectly) by undermining natural resource availability and access, but may also elicit more cooperative community responses in the face of shared risks and threats.  

The risks and opportunities associated with climate action are much the same. Adaptation interventions have the potential to inadvertently produce negative externalities for social cohesion and peace – and thereby jeopardize the efficacy of future climate action – if not designed and implemented in a conflict sensitive manner, thereby producing what is known as the ‘boomerang effect’. If done correctly, however, adaptation activities can also be leveraged to support the promotion of sustainable peace and address root causes of conflict and grievances.

It is therefore imperative that adaptation instruments possess the correct governing regulations, institutional arrangements, and capacities to adequately detect and assess conflict dynamics prior to intervention, embed peacebuilding into their design and implementation, and integrate peace and security considerations into monitoring, evaluation and institutional learning strategies.  

Building on this awareness and using its newly developed Conflict Sensitive Adaptation Governance (CSAG) framework, CGIAR’s Alliance of Bioversity International/CIAT have partnered with the Adaptation (Ada) Consortium in Kenya to analyse and evaluate Kenya’s County Climate Change Fund (CCCF) mechanism, a multi-level climate finance instrument designed on the basis of locally led adaptation (LLA) principles and which forms a central pillar of Kenya’s National Climate Change Action Plan III (2023-2027).  

What is the CCCF? 

The CCCF, first piloted in 2013, builds upon Kenya’s broader framework of devolution and legally mandates county authorities to allocate and disburse a minimum of 2% of funding earmarked for development to climate change-related activities. Specific bankable projects are designed by Ward Climate Change Planning Committees (WCCPCs) based on participatory climate risk assessments. Their proposals are subsequently submitted to County Climate Change Planning Committees (CCCPCs) for review, approval, and further technical implementation support. The Ada consortium has been supporting the operationalisation of the CCCF from its inception by helping draft key county legislation pertaining to the Fund, developing participatory diagnostic tools used to identify and map local climate risks together with community representatives, and producing various forms of technical guidance for ward and county authorities active within the CCCF. 

Together with the Ada Consortium, Alliance of Bioversity International/CIAT scientists conducted fieldwork in Isiolo, Wajir, and Kitui counties in Kenya over a 3 week period in order to identify already ongoing characteristics of the CCCF’s operations considered critical for conflict sensitivity, as well as opportunities to further strengthen the instrument’s capacities to work in and on conditions of conflict. Focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted with CCCPC and WCCCPC members, as well as members of various site management committees responsible for the day-to-day operations of CCCF project sites. These dialogues captured how those directly involved in CCCF operations are able to prepare for and manage potential conflict risks arising from investments made under the instrument. A survey was additionally distributed to users of CCCF projects across the 6 case study wards to evaluate community perspectives on how such projects had impacted relationships within and between households, genders, and different social groups in each locality.  

Insights from the analysis 

The analysis revealed that the CCCF has successfully operationalised LLA principles, and that community self-organisation was not only encouraged, but actively supported. WCCPCs are considered as legitimate local decision-making bodies that promote broad community representation (their composition being mandated to include representatives from a variety of social groups within each respective community), foster local ownership, and build trust within communities. In many cases, moreover, local bodies dedicated to maintaining peace within and between communities – such as Peace Committees and traditional rangeland management committees known as Dedha – have emerged as important de-facto stakeholders within CCCF planning and implementation processes. Such platforms are often well-positioned to contribute to adaptation planning due to their pre-existing authority in managing natural resource access, meaning that conflict sensitivity is therefore to some extent in practice naturally embedded within ward decision-making processes. The input of these bodies is critical, for example, in the adoption of harm-avoidance strategies, such as preventing the locating of project sites in contested areas.

Discussions with stakeholders also revealed the importance of some existing institutional mechanisms within the CCCF, such as the Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM), for offering critical channels for community feedback in order to promote accountability and transparency. Using the GRM, disagreements or conflict arising between parties as a result of CCCF project implementation and management can if necessary be escalated up to county authorities and beyond to ensure their resolution.   

Mainstreaming conflict sensitivity in the CCCF 

Our fieldwork also revealed, however, several important opportunities to further strengthen capacities for conflict sensitivity within CCCF operations. These include the option to embed peace and conflict stakeholders more systematically in Kenya, such as the National Steering Committee on Peacebuilding and Conflict Management (NSC) or county-level peace and security directorates, into CCCF planning stages. Doing so would ensure that sufficient technical expertise is present within county authorities to support WCCPCs in the development of conflict-sensitive and peace-positive investment proposals. The presence of these actors could, moreover, facilitate the construction of more structured documentation and collation of conflict dynamics identified through participatory risk assessments (which are not currently captured) and subsequently leveraged to inform broader conflict governance, early warning, or research frameworks. 

A final key opportunity for the CCCF to strengthen its potential utility as an instrument for conflict prevention and peacebuilding lies in the promotion of transboundary and landscape level approaches. Whilst efforts to employ such approaches are already underway within the CCCF under the leadership of the Ada Consortium, current projects tend to focus on localised solutions developed within administrative boundaries and miss opportunities for larger-scale, ecosystem level approaches to adaptation. The need to better account for landscape level dynamics is particularly critical as projects located near administrative or socio-ethnic boundaries tend to be more at risk of engendering competition and conflict.  

The lessons learned generated by this research collaboration with the Ada Consortium, available in full in an upcoming report, are timely. The CCCF is set to be scaled up beyond its pilot phases to Kenya’s remaining 44 counties over the next several years under the World Bank’s FLLOCA programme. Alliance of Bioversity International/CIAT scientists will continue to work closely with the Ada Consortium to successfully implement recommendations and leverage CGIAR science to ensure that adaptation efforts in Kenya do not only increase resilience, but also help sustain peace.