Convergence of Drought Risk Reduction, Climate Change Adaptation, and Land Restoration in East Africa: A Governance Landscape Approach

Keywords: climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction, land restoration, Kenya, Tanzania
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Saturday
Session Start / End Time: 2/26/2022 05:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/26/2022 06:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 56

Abstract

In the last decade, national governments in Kenya and Tanzania have made important new international commitments and devoted resources to establish local capacity for disaster risk reduction (DRR), climate change adaptation (CCA) and land restoration (LR). Despite the potential for substantial synergies between these three areas, DRR, CCA and LR in Kenya and Tanzania have been pursued through distinct institutional structures, drawn on different kinds of professional expertise, and utilized distinct frameworks and data sources for assessing needs and prescribing interventions. This paper examines existing foundations for and constraints to integration of DRR, CCA, and LR practices within distinct systems of devolved governance in Kenya and Tanzania. This comparative study of Kenya and Tanzania entails a suite of qualitative methods: stakeholder mapping in a workshop format, individual key informant interviews, and document analysis. The project used a governance landscape analytical framework to examine institutional and knowledge barriers to the convergence of DRR, CCA and LR under distinct models of decentralized governance in Kenya and Tanzania. In order to achieve this, we examine the configuration of major stakeholders in DRR, CCA and LR at the sub-national level, the institutional power dynamics among them, and the incentives and disincentives for greater convergence among these three agendas. The differences among counties and districts within each country suggests that sub-national governments have considerable power to shape the direction and magnitude of convergence so long as facilitating platforms for county-national-civil society collaboration are achieving results.