New partners in West Kenya

New partners in West Kenya:

CREP, Osienala, Vired and SusWatch have recently joined SustainableEnergy’s portfolio of partners in West Kenya. The four new partners have all signed contracts for initial one-year projects:

CREP and Osienala work with vulnerable communities around Lake Victoria. Osienala is engaged in the promotion of efficient stoves, while CREP focuses on addressing food and income security, and natural resource management. Vired is currently mapping a specific and local social problem of market women paying for fish through prostitution. Their final report is due in April and SustainableEnergy’s coordinator, Finn Tobiesen, expects the report to point to a need for a broader community approach to address this problem. SusWatch works with community capacity-building in relation to Kenya’s new national devolution policy where 30% of government funds have been decentralised to county-level. Their goal is to facilitate that communities benefit from these new funding opportunities.

Looking ahead, we plan that the best of the new and old projects in West Kenya will be merged into a coherent program beginning by 2016. Advocacy will be a critical issue in that program. Finn Tobiesen explains: “The devolution policy means that there is plenty of funding available in West Kenya. Our job is to influence decision makers so communities most vulnerable to climate change will benefit from these funds”.