Search Climate Insights Directory

The paper examines how digitising financial services can expand access to formal finance for underserved populations. It highlights South Africa's success in achieving high account ownership rates but argues that the focus must shift from simple access to 'quality financial inclusion'—emphasising productive usage, financial literacy, and the reduction of cash dependency in the informal economy. The author recommends a coordinated national strategy and enhanced public-private partnerships to address structural barriers and digital divides.

The Stockholm Environment Institute presents a seven-stage iterative framework for development interventions designed to move beyond the dichotomy of top-down and bottom-up approaches. By integrating service design and behavioural science, the toolkit emphasizes co-definition of problems and rapid prototyping to ensure interventions meet actual user needs. The effectiveness of this approach is illustrated through a case study of mango farmers in Kenya, where the toolkit revealed a misalignment between funder goals (fruit quality) and farmer priorities (fruit quantity).

The document outlines the ESIA process and technical specifications for the Lokichar-Lamu Crude Oil Pipeline, a joint venture between the Kenyan government and a consortium including Tullow Oil, Africa Oil Turnana, and Total Oil. The pipeline is designed to transport heavy crude oil from the Lokichar basin to a marine export terminal at the Port of Lamu. It details the stakeholder engagement process, the construction methodology involving trenching and backfilling, and key technical parameters such as a length of approximately 820 km and the inclusion of 16 intermediary stations.

The policy brief advocates for the adoption of marine and coastal ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) to protect vulnerable coastlines and livelihoods from climate change. It highlights the potential for 'soft' and 'hybrid' adaptation strategies in Southern and East Africa, while identifying barriers such as lack of political prioritisation, insufficient quantitative data for the private sector, and fragmented institutional governance. The author recommends mainstreaming EbA into Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and national budgets, promoting innovative financing like blue bonds and blue carbon credits, and ensuring the active participation of coastal communities and women in project design.

The report advocates for the integration of marine and coastal ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) into national climate policies and strategies in Southern Africa. It defines EbA as the use of biodiversity and ecosystem services to help people adapt to climate change, highlighting the value of mangroves, coral reefs, and seagrasses. The document identifies significant barriers to scaling EbA, including fragmented institutional governance, lack of quantitative cost-benefit data, and insufficient financing. It proposes innovative funding mechanisms like blue carbon projects and environmental impact bonds, and emphasizes the necessity of community-led partnerships and gender-inclusive approaches to ensure sustainable implementation.

The National Environment Tribunal (NET) in Kenya cancelled the license for a 1050MW coal power plant in Lamu County due to inadequate public participation and the omission of a climate change assessment in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).

The 'Gangavazi' project, a collaboration between the University of Exeter and the NGO S.A.F.E., used forum theatre in ten coastal Kenyan communities to address extreme weather impacts. By allowing community members to co-direct and change the outcome of a play based on their own experiences, the project shifted the focus from purely physical climate solutions to social resilience, such as girls' education and social cohesion. While some community-led initiatives like mangrove planting have successfully restored fish species, the document notes that these projects require further support to become self-sustainable and long-term.

The document examines the synergies and challenges of aligning the NAP and NDC processes under the Paris Agreement. It argues that because the NDC provides high-level direction and the NAP elaborates implementation strategies, they are complementary tools. Based on dialogues with 16 countries and workshops in Grenada and Peru, the brief identifies that most countries currently have informal alignment and suggests using the 2020 NDC update cycle to integrate NAP results, improve data quality, and enhance adaptation goals.

The document provides a comparative overview of National Adaptation Plan (NAP) processes in multiple countries, detailing their specific strategic approaches, priority sectors, and implementation milestones. It emphasizes the integration of climate adaptation into national development planning, the importance of cross-sectoral coordination, and the mobilization of climate finance to build resilience against diverse hazards such as sea-level rise, droughts, and extreme weather events.

The document argues that aligning NDCs and NAP processes provides a feasible starting point for countries to improve the coherence and efficiency of their climate policies. While NDCs offer high-level guidance, NAPs provide the technical strategies for implementation. The briefing identifies a continuum of alignment—ranging from informal to systematic—and highlights that the 2020 NDC update cycle presents a critical opportunity for countries to use NAP results to enhance the quality and ambition of their adaptation goals. It further suggests that this alignment can serve as a foundation for broader integration with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The Msimbazi Basin in Dar es Salaam faces severe flood risks exacerbated by rapid urbanisation and climate change, with annual losses estimated at $47 million. To address this, the Tanzania Urban Resilience Programme (TURP) was established in 2016 to implement a holistic strategy involving risk identification, reduction, emergency preparedness, and a 'resilience academy'. A central component is the proposed Msimbazi Basin City Park, which employs a hybrid approach combining ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) with hard engineering to manage floodwaters while providing socio-economic and biodiversity benefits. The document highlights that the government secured $20 million by framing the project as 'urban planning, restructuring and resilience' rather than solely flood management, suggesting that cross-sectoral project packaging is essential for accessing diverse funding streams.

The briefing highlights the role of 'private actors in the service industry', such as bankers, lawyers, and accountants, in designing the structures that facilitate state capture and corruption, noting that these actors are frequently not held accountable.

Natural Justice argues that the Public Order (Amendment) Bill, 2019 is unconstitutional because it imposes strict liability on organizers for damages caused during public meetings. The organization contends that such provisions threaten the right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression under the Constitution of Kenya, suggesting that only the individual found culpable should be required to provide compensation.

Natural Justice submitted a set of recommendations to the County Government of Kilifi to improve the 2018 draft Air Quality Regulations. The organization argues for the inclusion of more stringent penalties, the removal of exemptions for contaminant discharge, and the requirement that the County Director of Environment (representing NEMA) be involved in notifications and monitoring to ensure transparency and compliance with national laws and the Constitution of Kenya.

Kenya is implementing a phased approach to develop an adaptation monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system to overcome common challenges such as data scarcity and measurement uncertainty. The system is designed to align with the country's climate change policy context and priority adaptation actions.

The report argues that Kenya suffers from 'state capture,' where a political elite has repurposed state institutions—specifically the Presidency and the Treasury—for private profiteering and to fund electioneering. It contends that conventional anti-corruption efforts, including high-profile arrests and commissions of inquiry, are tactical 'stagecraft' that fail to address the deep roots of the problem. The document details three major cases of state capture: the Goldenberg, Anglo Leasing, and Eurobond scandals. It further analyzes how the electoral management body, the police, and the judiciary have been compromised to maintain this system. The report concludes that while democracy has been hollowed out, it still offers potential for rupture through economic crises or the emergence of powerful anti-corruption coalitions, and suggests that civil society should focus on archiving evidence for future prosecutions and pursuing international indictments.

The paper argues that traditional Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) often fail to accurately capture the complexities of biomass energy and land cover, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. By linking the TIAM-ECN economic model with the MoFuSS geospatial model, the author demonstrates that projected woodfuel demand in Kenya exceeds the sustainable supply of woody biomass. The study highlights a gap in current modelling where economic optimization does not account for physical landscape constraints, suggesting that future models must better integrate market responses, such as price increases and fuel substitution, with spatial biomass availability.

The report examines adaptation activities across 18 developing countries' NDC Partnership Plans, identifying critical gaps in climate risk assessments, project design, and M&E systems. It argues that these short-term plans can be leveraged to align NDC pledges with the more detailed NAP processes to improve climate resilience planning and implementation.

The author describes a series of visits to mining and development sites in South Africa and Kenya, highlighting environmental destruction and human rights violations. The text criticizes the South African government's support for the mining industry and the New Development Bank's funding of coal-fired power plants, while warning against the dangers of geoengineering funded by carbon emitters.

The NAP Global Network has supported gender analyses in Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Guinea-Conakry, Madagascar, and Togo since 2018 to ensure climate adaptation investments generate equitable benefits for women and men. The briefing outlines the approach taken and identifies common themes and lessons learned to inform the formulation and implementation of these national plans.