PEER-TO-PEER LEARNING SESSION

Organized by Sustainable Environmental Development Watch – SusWatch Kenya and supported by Christian Aid under the Scaling Inclusive and Accountable Climate Finance project, the session focused on strengthening local governance for transparent and inclusive Climate Finance.

The Kisumu team was highly impressed by Vihiga County’s high-impact projects and the deep involvement of its WCCPCs at every project stage.

The session also yielded the following critical recommendations for Kisumu County to enhance its Climate Project delivery:

Full WCCPC Involvement from Project conceptualization through to post-implementation

Need for Prioritization of projects with the greatest impact relative to the investment (Beneficiaries vs Funds)

Need to Sensitize and regularly involve MCAs before project commencement to ensure support and enable focused resource allocation

Need to establish and equip Community Project Management Committees (like the Mudungu Model) to ensure self-sustainability and community ownership

Need to re-evaluate WCCPC composition to have fewer members, mostly being Community representatives, as currently, only 5 out of 11 are community-elected, leading to inadequate representation of marginalized voices

Empower WCCPC Chairpersons in terms of leading the community processes, which are currently being dominated by Ward Administrators

Need to invest in last mile connectivity to the vulnerable as opposed to only building water kiosks

To sum up the engagement, the Vihiga team shared an innovative idea on how to leverage water projects by using part of the collections to register a company for purifying and packaging water, thereby creating employment and enhancing County revenue.