Kenya has taken a significant step toward securing international climate finance to address escalating climate change induced losses and damages, as government agencies, experts, and partners convened for a five-days technical workshop aimed at preparing the country’s first comprehensive funding request to the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD).
The Capacity Building and Preparatory Workshop, organized by the Climate Change Directorate (CCD) under the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Forestry, with the support of UNFPA focused on addressing the devastating impacts of rising lake waters commonly referred to as backflow affecting Rift Valley lakes and Lake Victoria.
The phenomenon, driven by climate change, hydro-meteorological variability, and land-use pressures among others, has displaced more than 75,000 households and submerged critical infrastructure, including roads, schools, and health facilities hence eroding the development efforts by government.
The workshop brought together 35 technical experts from national and county governments, academia, civil society, and development partners to align Kenya’s response with the just finalized Barbados Implementation Modalities (BIM), the framework guiding access to FRLD financing.
During the official opening, Director Climate Change Dr Pacifica Ogola read on her behalf by Mr Lerenten, reiterated the fact that the scale of loss and damage facing Kenya is increasingly exceeding adaptation limits and hence meets the threshold for loss and damage.
Beyond economic losses, communities are grappling with profound non-economic losses, including the submergence of cultural sites and graves, rising disease burdens, deaths, and social conflict.
Throughout the week, participants will engage in in-depth sessions covering the science of loss and damage including attribution science, governance of loss and damage under the UNFCCC, and the operational requirements of the FRLD.
Experts will also review Kenya’s previous assessments on rising lake levels and identified critical data gaps, particularly in quantifying non-economic losses such as displacement, health impacts, and cultural heritage loss.
The programme will feature sectoral perspectives spanning health, gender, education, agriculture, water, roads, and population mobility, as well as county-level case studies from Nakuru, Kisumu, Busia, and Turkana.
Speakers are drawn from government institutions, universities, and international partners highlighted the intersection of climate change with public health, gender-based violence, and social vulnerability, reinforcing the need for gender-responsive and community-driven responses.
A central outcome of the workshop is the collaborative development of standardized data collection tools to support a nationwide fact-finding and data collection mission scheduled for January 2026.
These tools will underpin Kenya’s FRLD funding request by providing robust evidence of both economic and non-economic losses, in line with BIM criteria emphasizing country ownership, expected impact, and coherence with existing national policies.
The CCD, as Kenya’s National Focal Point to the FRLD, will coordinate the next phases, including data collection, drafting, and internal endorsement of the funding request ahead of the February 2026 submission target.
Officials described the workshop as the first of its kind in Kenya and a critical milestone in translating climate impacts on the ground into actionable international support.
In attendance were Thomas Lerenten Lelekoitien , Michael Okumu, Samuel Muchiri and James Thonjo, from the Climate Change Directorate and, Patricia Nying’uro (MET Department) among others.
Source: Top Africa News