Letter from the World Wide Fund for Nature
(WWF Eastern Africa Regional Programme Office) to the Head of
DfID Kenya, as part of DfID Kenya's Consultation on its Country
Assistance Plan 2004-07
Thank you for contacting WWF Eastern Africa
Programme Office to provide our comments on the Kenya Country
Assistance Plan, 2004-07.
WWF-EARPO commends DfID Kenya for an open and
transparent consultation process with different stakeholders.
The document recognises clearly that the environment
matters greatly to people living in poverty. It affects their
livelihoods and health and can increase their vulnerability to
external shocks. This is well covered in the publication "DfID
A guide to Environmental Screening—2003"[17]
The Plan also recognises that developing countries
are already experiencing environmental degradation and exhaustion
of environmental resources that are vital to long-term development.
However, there is limited recognition of the
importance of environmental sustainability to achieving both poverty
reduction and economic growth. This is a particular concern given
the high dependency of the poor in Kenya on natural resources
and that national economic growth will be based on growth in the
agriculture and natural resource sectors. We would like to propose
more emphasis on the following issues:
— Improving access to water and sanitation:
we welcome the recognition that to achieve this there is a need
to support improved water management and that this will be an
area addressed through the PEAK programme. The Plan doesn't clarify
what are the current challenges with regards to integrated water
resources management (eg limited capacity in catchment management,
illegal abstraction, poor land use management planning leading
to erosion and siltation of rivers, etc).
— Economic growth based on agriculture
and natural resources: we would like to suggest that investment
in this area should look at ensuring that practices promote sustainable
use of natural resources. The document already highlights that
agricultural growth has been limited by the degradation of land
resources and limited availability of water, perhaps this would
suggest a need for a more integrated approach between the Ministry
of Agriculture, Lands, Water and Environment to planning and policy
development? However, the document only talks of supporting integrated
policy development on land and agriculture. We would like to suggest
broaden this to include other sectors. This could include sustainable
use of natural resources and its contribution to poverty reduction
at a localised level (eg WWF work on sustainable use of wood and
fisheries management), and how this work has the potential to
deliver wider benefits if some of the macro level challenges to
scaling this up could be addressed.
We would suggest that the following issues be
incorporated:
1. A specific objective in the plan could
be to "Strengthen the focus on environment in the National
Economic Recovery Strategy (ERS)".
2. Amongst the cross cutting actions planned
(eg increase in accountability of the Government to its citizens)
increasing the integration of environment conservation in different
sectors should also be a focus.
Finally, we are encouraged that DfID will continue
to support improved environmental governance through the PEAK
programme. However, there are no clear mechanisms showing how
this will be addressed during the implementation. WWF would be
prepared to suggest some ideas on this.
Thank you again for giving WWF the opportunity
to comment on this important document. We take this opportunity
to offer WWF input during the implementation of the Plan.
February 2004
Health—poor people suffer most when water,
land and the air are polluted. Environmental risk factors are
a major source of health problems in developing countries.
Vulnerability—the poor are often exposed to
environmental hazards and environment-related conflict and are
least capable of coping when they occur.
Source: DfID A guide to Environmental Screening—2003.
17 Livelihoods-poor people tend to be most dependent
upon the environment and the direct use of natural resources.
They are therefore the most severely affected when the environment
is degraded or their access to natural resources is limited or
denied. Back
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