As the world looks to next week’s COP29 to deliver on promised Loss and Damage funding, Chiara Liguori shares insights from a pioneering Scotland-funded project that repaired damaged water systems, provided cash to impacted communities and supported peacebuilding.
‘We had to run for our lives. We did not like moving here. We had no other choice but to accept the reality. We do not have decent houses. Some live in tents. It is just struggles. When we wake up in the morning, some go straight to fetching water… many hours are lost just on fetching water.’
This account from Hadija Jilo (pictured above), a pastoralist in northern Kenya, captures the hardship and devastation brought by the climate crisis to communities in the country’s arid and semi-arid region.
So how can governments provide practical redress for climate damage to communities? A recent project funded by the Scottish government and implemented by Oxfam and its local partners in northern Kenya offers key insights.
As our new briefing looking back at the project sets out, these communities face frequent and severe droughts, often followed by flash floods brought by torrential rains. As a result, they are confronted with many losses and damages, from death, hunger and malnutrition to displacement and damage to water infrastructure, houses, schools, and livelihoods.
The erosion of pastures and dwindling water resources have also exacerbated conflict between neighbouring communities. Women are particularly affected, as damage to water sources increases the distances women and girls walk to water points. That, in turn, raises the risks of gender-based violence (GBV) and contributes further to the unequal distribution of unpaid care and domestic work.
All of these are examples of “Loss and Damage”, a term loaded with a history of unmet demands from countries most impacted by the climate crisis, who have been left more impoverished, more indebted and with their people paying the price for a crisis they have done almost nothing to create.
Addressing loss and damage in practice
It was only in 2021 that the taboo of global north governments funding lower-income countries to respond to loss and damage was finally broken, as Scotland became the first nation to do so. And it was only in 2022, at the COP27 UN Climate Conference that states agreed to create a new global fund dedicated to supporting lower-income countries to address the unavoidable consequences of climate change. But that is not the end of the story.
The Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage is still working out how it will operate and what and who it will fund. While some rich countries have pledged some money to the Fund, commitments to date are mere pocket money compared to the vast scale of the needs of the most affected countries and communities.
While the cogs of global climate diplomacy slowly turn, the Scottish Government has allocated its own funding separate from the global initiative to explore how loss and damage finance can be spent most effectively.
Between December 2023 and March 2024, this supported Oxfam to work with partners in northern Kenya – the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands Humanitarian Network (AHN), Strategies for Northern Development (SND) in Samburu County and Merti Integrated Development Programme (MID-P) in Isiolo County – to provide measures to redress the losses and damages suffered by communities living there.
The project had three components:
- The rehabilitation and construction of water systems damaged by floods and drought, particularly benefitting women and girls who often have to take responsibility for this household duty.
- Community managed cash transfers to help address the priorities identified by community groups, particularly by women-led groups, including to rebuild damaged livelihoods, such as through livestock re-stocking.
- Relieving non-economic losses by strengthening local peace committees to try and reduce community tension raised by increased competition for scarce resources.
Key Learnings
The project provided Oxfam, AHN, SND, MID-P and the participating communities with some key insights. Although these learnings are from one small-scale and time-limited project, they echo the reflections and experiences of many other communities and organisations. Our analysis, documented in detail in our new briefing about the project, draws out five key lessons:
1. Give time and resources to support each community’s understanding of loss and damage – and what they need to address it
Communities understand how climate change is affecting them better than any external parties. So, it is crucial to allocate sufficient funds, time and resources to create a space where they can build their collective understanding of what loss and damage means to them. This includes an understanding of what their rights are and what responses best deliver justice in their own context.
2. Responses must be locally led and grassroots groups should control the funding as much as possible
Ensuring that communities, Indigenous Peoples, local civil society organisations, women’s rights organisations and groups experiencing marginalisation get direct access to funding should be a priority, both for the global Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage and other funders. Doing so promotes innovation, leverages communities’ and CSOs’ considerable expertise and knowledge, promotes their agency, and addresses loss and damage in ways that are most relevant to them and overall, most effective.
As Golicha Wario, Loss and Damage Lead at SND, says, “The community are given the resources to make decisions for themselves, to enable them to regain their economic stability and to foster resilience… Because the community are the first and last responders in any crisis, we’re going to select the project that is a priority for them.”
Besides access to project-based funding, grassroots groups should be able to meaningfully participate in the design, planning and implementation of responses as well as funding decisions at local, national and international level. They should get a say on funding priorities and also have meaningful opportunities to scrutinise funding decisions.
3. Loss and damage responses must be gender-transformative
To avoid further entrenching existing gender inequalities and to promote substantive gender equality, loss and damage responses need to be not just gender-responsive, but also gender-transformative, so that women, men and gender non-conforming people can fully enjoy their rights. In particular, addressing gender-based violence and fostering women’s participation in decision-making processes is crucial for building resilient communities that can effectively respond to future climate shocks and actively seek remedies for loss and damage.
4. Loss of peace can be a form of loss and damage
Conflict resulting from battles over natural resources depleted by climate damage is a form of non-economic loss and damage. So, incorporating peacebuilding in responses is essential, particularly in conflict-prone areas. Involving communities and local groups throughout the design and implementation of such work not only avoids future conflicts by ensuring projects are conflict-sensitive but also seizes opportunities for climate action that can advance peacebuilding.
5. Long-term programmes are crucial
While short projects can create positive change, comprehensively addressing loss and damage in many contexts demands longer term programmes, with funds committed that can be used flexibly in response to evolving circumstances.
These should be based on long-term and large-scale national and local plans and priorities, while facilitating local leadership, including by supporting long-term community-led projects and incorporating grants for communities, local CSOs, women’s rights organisations, Indigenous Peoples and people experiencing marginalisation.
Every programme needs to be based on in-depth gender and human rights analysis integrated into loss and damage needs assessments, ensuring all aspects of non-economic loss and damage are considered, and centring the participation of different groups with diverse and distinct experiences.
Let’s put local communities at the heart of global Loss and Damage efforts
Climate impacts on people in northern Kenya and other lower-income countries are overwhelmingly due to the failure of rich and highly carbon-emitting countries to promptly tackle climate change. Wealthy countries participating at next week’s COP29 must ensure the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage has the means to provide meaningful redress for the harms that people are suffering. At the same time, governments in lower-income countries must put in place loss and damage assessments, plans and responses that truly respond to the needs of those most affected.
To deliver the support needed, the Fund, together with both contributing countries and recipient governments, must learn from the experiences and the knowledge of those on the frontline of the climate crisis and ensure these are at the forefront of all loss and damage responses. Only then will the new Fund make a meaningful, long overdue contribution to climate justice.
Author
Read the full briefing: Communities In Charge: Lessons for the Global Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage from a locally-led project in Kenya
This blog has also been published by the Loss and Damage Collaboration.