Djibouti News Gazette

The Nyeri County department of Water, Environment and Climate Change is working on a proposal which will see the county dedicate a percentage of its annual development budget to climate change mitigation.

The proposals are contained in the Climate Change Act and the Climate Change Fund Regulations which are set to be presented before the executive for incorporation in the Nyeri Finance Bill 2023. According, Nyeri Climate Change Director, Ms Yvonne Mathenge, the move is the first step towards ensuring that the county is able to fund climate change mitigation strategies.

‘The Climate Change Act and the Climate Change Fund Regulations are proposing that at least one per cent of the county’s development budget be set aside for climate change strategies. The model will be similar to the county integrated development plan where the county government dedicates funds in the budget to go towards the programmes,’ said Ms Mathenge.

‘Our hope is that moving forward climate change mitigation will not just be about dependency on foreign support, we want to ensure that as a county, we have a strategy that we can start implementing some of these measures even as we are looking out for external assistance,’ she added.

Ms Mathenge was speaking at the sidelines of a climate multi-stakeholder meeting that brought together climate change experts, community based organisations working on climate smart agriculture projects in the eight sub-counties in Nyeri and government officials. The workshop was organised with the aim of validating views on the draft Participatory Climate Risk Assessment and the County Climate Change Action Plan. The two documents, Ms Mathenge said, will further shape the county’s effectiveness in tackling the effects of climate change.

A report released by the Nyeri meteorological department in April this year classified 50 per cent of the county as arid and semi-arid whereas 85 per cent of the county, as food insecure. Ms Mathenge noted that drought, landslides, floods, pests and diseases and frost had been identified as the emerging negative effects of climate change that the county was battling.

‘Besides capturing the status of the county with regards to climate change, the two documents also capture how many people have been getting food aid. We are also doing climate projections because we have realised that there is what we can do to mitigate the effects and there are measures that can be taken to adapt to the prevailing weather conditions,’ said Ms Mathenge.

The strategies have been split into sectors namely disaster and risk management; food and nutrition; water and blue economy; environment, tourism and wildlife; health and human settlement and manufacturing and trade which had been identified as critical. The director said that the mitigation plan will be implemented over a five year period in the eight sub-counties.

‘We have already drawn the strategic plan and identified some of the plans to be implemented. For the ones that have already been employed before and are working we have started to upscale them and for the ones that are not working, we are coming up with fresh strategies,’ she said.

Source: Kenya News Agency

The State Department for Gender and Affirmative Action has launched a sensitization programme on Gender-Based Violence (GBV) targeting Boda Boda riders.

Halima Abdi, Director of the Anti-Gender Based Violence directorate said it is crucial to have community dialogues with men to establish positive gender attitudes to end GBV.

The boda boda riders converged at the Mombasa County Commissioner’s boardroom and decried sexual harassment they go through in the line of duty from their pillion passengers.

‘As Boda Boda riders we have encountered a myriad of challenges, especially in our work through GBV.The most focus of GBV is on women but as men, we are going through GBV,” said Josphat Odour, Secretary General Mombasa County BodaBoda Association.

Odour revealed that some women passengers use sexual overtures as bait not to pay for rides.

‘They see riders as an opportunity to carry them without money; if you insist on fare then she wants to offer sex in exchange, even the way they handle you it inferred ulterior motives. We mostly encounter these challenges at night,” said Odour.

The riders said the sensitization was informative as they now know of the existence of gender-based desks in all police stations to handle cases relating to GBV.

‘The desks were not there before; I hope we will be assisted when we go to the police stations because when we took our cases as men we were laughed at, ‘stated Odour.

Christine Munyoki, a woman Boda Boda rider operating in Changamwe Sub-County said some male riders feel threatened by women joining the Boda Boda sector as they look for passengers.

She said, ‘I work during the day till late hours, we are going through challenges because we have entered into a male-dominated sector and they don’t like it’.

She added that they will report cases of GBV to the police, she urged the Directorate of Anti-GBV to cascade the teachings to the grassroots to create awareness.

Source: Kenya News Agency

The Majority Leader in the National Assembly Kimani Ichungw’a has committed to subjecting the proposed finance bill to thorough public scrutiny before it’s tabled in the house for enactment into law.

Kimani Ichungw’a said parliament has received tens of petitions, and memorandums on the proposed bill that seeks to address various particulars which the delegated committee will look into.

The finance bill that is before parliament has proposed several tax measures including the controversial three percent housing fund contribution for civil servants to fund the government’s affordable housing agenda.

The bill which also proposes the harmonization of the Value Added Tax on fuel from the current eight percent to 16 percent has equally received criticisms from a section of Kenyans who fear that the love will increase the cost of living.

But while addressing participants during the 3rd Annual National Parliamentary Symposium in Naivasha, Ichungw’a said the public views and sentiments will be considered before the bill is enacted into law.

Ichung’wa termed public participation as a key element of the constitution in ensuring citizens are involved in the budget-making process that seeks to address how the country’s taxes will be spent.

He said the country has been lauded for entrenching public participation as a key constitutional pillar in the legislative process, budget making, vetting, and other government-led decisions making.

The proposed taxes in the bill have received cold waters with the opposition lawmakers threatening to shoot down the bill in parliament noting that the taxes will put more burden on Kenyans.

His sentiments were echoed by former Makueni Governor Kibutha Kibwana who termed as crucial the involvement of citizens in decisions making of how their taxes will be used.

Prof. Kibwana said failure to adequately involved citizens through public participation has seen passed laws being annulled by the courts.

He called on lawmakers, and policy experts to enhance the proposed public participation bill that seeks to address gaps and entrench a standard culture of citizen-centric development agendas.

Kibwana said public participation should meet the quantity and quality of ideas and contributions as well as create more avenues that allow citizens to be at the center of governance.

‘The era of imposing decisions and muzzling citizens’ rights and voices must come to an end for democracy to take its course’, said Kibwana.

Source: Kenya News Agency

The Seychelles’ Public Utilities Corporation (PUC) and the Department of Energy are currently assessing prospective government buildings to install photovoltaic panels, said a top official.

These are the latest steps Seychelles is taking towards achieving 15 percent renewable penetration by 2030 and the greater vision of hitting net-zero emissions by 2050.

“We are assessing whether the earmarked institutions’ roofs can sustain having the panels,” the Principal Secretary for Energy and Climate Change, Tony Imaduwa, told SNA.

Among the buildings being assessed are health centres, police stations and other government offices to see if their roofs can hold the PV systems first of all. The assessment is on energy consumption and whether the grid can integrate them as well as if there are plans to carry out renovation work on the buildings.

“It will not make sense to install the panel on a building such as a police station that will be undergoing renovations soon,” explained Imaduwa.

Seychelles has received funding from an Indian government grant to support a programme to install PV systems on government buildings. Additional funding has been added to next year’s budget to ensure the completion of the second phase.

The first phase of the installation of PV panels on certain government buildings is completed and the Department of Energy has started work for the second phase.

The Barbarbarons emergency housing estate in the west of Mahe, the main island, and the National Assembly building at Ile du Port are some of the buildings included in the first phase.

“We started this programme some years back under the PV democratisation project. Through the ongoing project, more government buildings will be identified,” said Imaduwa.

Meanwhile, to complement this program, the Department is also running one for schools under the Solar School Project partly funded by the Chinese government.

“So far we have covered schools on La Digue and Praslin and some on Mahe,” explained Imaduwa.

Currently, the largest PV panel is on the roof of the Central Bank building in Victoria.

Seychelles — a group of 115 islands in the western Indian Ocean — relies heavily on imported fossil fuel for power generation and transportation. Currently, only 2.5 percent of the island nation’s electrical energy is from renewable sources.

Source: Seychelles News Agency