Climate Smart Water Governance

The Climate Smart Water Governance project sought to address inequality and unequal access to water in Garissa and Kilifi counties. The perennial water shortages continue to affect these dry areas, causing malnutrition, domestic and inter-clan conflicts. The severity of prioritizing better water management practises cannot be overemphasized, especially within the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL) regions of the country. Different interventions that focus policy development, behaviour change, community water storage action, and practises directly linked to utilization of water resource, remain paramount. Climate smart water governance project was designed to effect change through policy advocacy that included facilitation of engagement forums and session between the government and stakeholders within the water sector, including the community. This process intended to achieve better water management practices and easy accessibility to the scarce resource.

The project with an 18-month implementation period was well set out with three outputs laid out as a roadmap to achieving smarter mechanisms of water management and governance across the two counties of Garissa and Kilifi. This report documents findings from an end line evaluation using outcome harvesting.  The initial stage comprised of the description of the outcome process, identification of stakeholders to be involved in the harvesting process. The respondents were identified via a purposive sampling process, infused with grounded theory. The saturation levels were achieved, at a notable sample size of 40 individuals per sub-county where the project was implemented, (treating a sub-county as a sample frame where change happens), as well as a similar number for the substantiation process.

The sampling ensured gender inclusivity with the total number of respondents at the household level, key informants and workshop formats having an almost 50/50 ratio of male and female attendants. The outcomes were analysed based on the orientation of change, with the stories constituting a total of 24 outcomes harvested in the two counties.  The analysis themes focused on the role of the project, orientation of the outcome, type of change, and the level of change. The most frequent types of changes were from outcomes that affected community’s knowledge and capabilities (12/24 outcomes) and the strategies (6 of 24 outcomes). These outcomes show that though there was minimal messaging about the project, the aim at behaviour change based on the training from the project resulted in positive outcomes at (20 of 24 outcomes). Additional substantiation was done using behaviour categorization of; Always, Most of the time, Sometimes, Half the time, Never and Not Applicable.

The project provided value across the community and individual levels; with the most significant outcomes (18 of 24 outcomes) showing an improvement in water management processes at individual and household levels. Other outcomes that focused on community engagement, group formation and conflict management, were confirmed. In Garissa, the stories documented conflict resolution processes improved both at the community and the household levels. The outcome on stakeholder’s engagement, especially with the water services providers like GAWASCO, MAWASCO, KIMAWASCO and Northern water services board, was not witnessed, at least at the community level. The full list of the outcomes with the table is included in the annex.