Climate Change Resilience Consultancy, Kenya at Namati

Consultancy Overview

As part of our initiative to more effectively integrate climate change resilience strategies into efforts to support communities to strengthen their land tenure security by registering their lands using the Community Land Act, we are seeking out the service of an expert climate change resilience consultant. The consultant’s primary tasks will focus on building the capacity of Namati’s staff and partners on effective community-based climate change resilience strategies, developing simple resources for Namati, its partners, and communities focused on climate change resilience, and developing a straightforward climate change resilience training curriculum for newly elected Community Land Management Committees.

About Namati’s Community Land Protection Program

Namati works to proactively strengthen communities’ ability to document and protect their customary and indigenous land rights. Our integrated approach combines the legal and technical work of mapping and documentation with the governance work of resolving land conflicts, ensuring intra-community equity, and strengthening mechanisms for accountable and participatory management of land and natural resources. A central aim of our work is the promotion of community-wide changes in governance that strengthen women’s land rights. As part of our governance focused work, we support paralegals to document traditional community rules that might violate women’s rights, use rights-based legal education and activities to support women to demonstrate their key role in land management, and then support community members to think critically about rules that violate rights – and change them so they are legally compliant and do not infringe on women’s rights.

Our community land protection approach supports paralegals – who are selected by community members and trained and supervised by local partner organizations – to help communities to undertake a series of activities designed to produce strong community by-laws that ensure democratic governance, leaders that are accountable to community members, and good governance of lands and natural resources.

Community Land Protection and Climate Resilience in Kenya

Community land tenure insecurity and the impacts of climate change are especially intense in Kenya, one of Namati’s focus countries. Community land which has been historically managed and “owned” by local communities, is under siege – by multinational companies, local elites, and the Kenyan government. According to the Government of Kenya, community land comprises approximately 67% of the total land mass of the country. Loss of communal and family lands deprives Kenya’s most vulnerable citizens – especially women, ethnic minorities, and indigenous people - of the source of their livelihoods, culture, and identity. Recent mega infrastructure projects, such as the Lamu Port South Sudan Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) Corridor and oil discoveries, have accelerated the pace of community lands being illegally allocated to investors or claimed by the national government – and exploited for climate-disruptive purposes – without communities’ free, prior, informed consent.

Nearly 90% of Kenya’s community land are classified as arid and semi-arid lands (ASAL) and occupied by indigenous pastoralists. Drought, floods, unpredictable rainfall patterns, privatization and subdivision of community land, and changing ecosystems have presented indigenous pastoral communities with an existential threat – not just to their land rights, but to their survival as a pastoralist people. In the face of this threat, the pastoralist livelihood system can often adapt to a changing climate easier than other livelihoods systems – as long as interventions also focus on other issues such as land tenure insecurity and strengthening local land and natural resource governance.

The primary aim of our program is to deploy paralegals to support communities to secure their land rights and strengthen local land and natural resource governance using Kenya’s Community Land Act (2016), as a means to ensure food security and sustainable livelihoods in the context of a changing climate. As we deploy paralegals to support communities to meet the requirements of the Community Land Act, we will also systematically document common challenges that communities face during the process of registering their land. Tracking institutional barriers and identifying inefficient administrative processes will provide information on where reforms are needed to address gaps in implementation.

Our secondary aim is to support county governments (who have a role to play in the implementation of the Community Land Act) to integrate and fund a legal empowerment approach to supporting communities to claim their land rights and implement climate change resilience strategies. To accomplish this goal, we will assist our partners to engage directly with county officials and provide training on how to approach county-level civil servants. We will also share our on-going learning with government official so they understand the impact of our approach, as well as challenges encountered. As we learn more about how to most effectively integrate climate change resilience strategies, we will include these strategies in our outreach to county governments.

Finally, we aim to foster a community of practice that includes each of our partner organizations, as well as several other organizations and experts (including national-level advocacy organizations, lawyers, conservation agencies, and supportive government officials) to support the implementation of the Community Land Act.

Specific Tasks and Deliverables for Consultant

• A detailed report that includes an inventory of traditional climate change resilience practices that have been implemented by communities from arid and semi-arid pastoralist areas in Kenya, documentation of key threats, gaps of traditional resilience practices, recommendations to change traditional practices so they address current and future climate change threats, and impact of formalization of land rights on positive traditional practices.
• An audit of Kenya’s Community Land Act focused on opportunities to address climate change resilience during community-level implementation of the law.
• Development of simple resources that can help communities strengthen and document climate change resilience strategies.
• Facilitation of a workshop for Namati and its partner organizations focused on community-driven climate change resilience strategies.
• Three two-day workshops focused on community-driven climate change resilience strategies for newly elected Community Land Management Committees in Kajiado, Laikipia, and Isiolo counties.

Consultancy Timeline

We anticipate that we will begin working with the consultant in April 2019. All deliverables should be completed by October 2019.

Consultant Requirements

• Advanced degree in a relevant field.
• At least seven years working directly on climate change resilience issues.
• Experience developing training material and resources for low-literacy audiences.
• Experience working directly with climate change-affected communities in Kenya.
• Excellent writing and communications skills.
• Familiarity with Kenya’s Community Land Act and related laws and regulations.
• Ability to regularly meet and coordinate with Namati Kenya staff in our Nairobi office.