1. Project description
As a result of the changing climatic conditions, Lake Turkana, the world’s largest desert water lake recognized by UNESCO as a world-heritage site in danger, is bulging. Water levels in the lake surged after River Omo originating from the Ethiopian highlands swelled following heavy rains. In Turkana County, the lake has expanded to over four kilometres into settlements, displacing hundreds of local community members, their livestock hence disrupting livelihoods and ecosystems and submerging business premises including Beach Management Unit’s offices. According to community members, about 15,000 persons living in areas adjacent to the lake have been displaced and have been spending the nights in makeshift structures in areas as far as 15 kilometres from the lake. Property worth millions of shillings has also been destroyed. While this considerable damage has been done, the local and national governments’ response to this menace has been disappointing. As a result, local fisherfolks and pastoralists continue to suffer in silence with no end in sight for their troubles.

 2. Project progress up to now

Our proposed objectives and activities were focused on leading advocacy efforts to understand, address, mitigate, and help local communities adapt to the impacts of climate change. Our team at Article 43 that led the intervention is entirely a team of young people. We also had the necessary expertise and a clear understanding of the local climate change context. The following are the activities that we carried out with the support of the Korea SHE Foundation grant.

1. We conducted a field visit and data collection through filming and interviews with fisherfolk at the Lake Turkana Basin

2. We sought the opinion of an expert of a climate change

3. We printed promotional materials including flyers and banners

4. We convened a Civil Society and Media Forum to screen the film to members of the public drawn from media and civil society

5. We also convened community forums and other meetings with senior county and national government officials to screen the film

6. We shared the findings of the filming with the relevant government departments 

3. Project plan forward

The sustainability of the project may be negatively impacted by lack of a definite continued government or partner’s support especially at the end of the project. By putting a firm foundation through awareness creation, the plan is to ensure that there is sustainability of this project and the end product being a formulation of the micro-catchment management plan that will create a more secure, healthier and more resilient societies for the benefit of the current and future generations.

Article 43 and its group of resilient women will own this project and take the lead in ensuring that the project end results are achieved. To ensure sustainability, Article 43 will make it part of its annual plans to continue working with the pastoralists and fisherfolk to conserve the Lake Turkana Basin and the fragile Turkana environment generally. We endeavor to work with the local county government as well as the national government’s Ministries of Environment to ensure that a Catchment Management Plan is formulated and implemented.

This project has a great scalability and replicability potential. The Lake Turkana Basin which is the target of this project stretches more than 150 kilometres from the South to the North up to the Ethiopian border. While this project will be implemented in the parts of the Basin that have been majorly negatively impacted by climate change and environmental degradation, the plan is to scale this conservation efforts to other parts of the Lake Turkana Basin and to the rest of the larger Turkana County.

On replicability, this project can be replicated in other parts of Turkana County especially in riverine regions of River Turkwel and River Kerio which has faced similar increased degradation. The project will leverage on the available funds to set the foundation for these conservation efforts over the course of the different phases as indicated. Once the foundation has been set, it is our intention that Article 43 and other stakeholders including the relevant government departments will take the lead in continuing the conservation work for Turkana’s fragile ecosystems.

There shall be participatory monitoring and evaluation for this project. This will be the actions that are needed to improve monitoring and evaluation of the use and management of water and land resources overtime in the Lake Turkana Basin. Scientifically, we will work with government to monitor and evaluate the project’s impact through meteorological and regular gauging stations and other measurements and tests. This will aid in understanding whether or not progress has been made in the course of implementation of the aspirations detailed in the catchment management plan. In addition, identification of the actions needed to enhance communication and information sharing between the residents of the Lake Turkana Basin members, all resource users and other stakeholders utilizing the natural resources is also vital. Article 43 will endeavour to take lead in this regard and to ensure regular reporting is done to the relevant government agencies and to the donor. 

4. Photos