Kenya became the first African nation to receive landmark climate disaster funding. It will be used to identify Kenyans who have suffered climate-related losses and damages during the last decade.
The Sh90 million ($700,000) in funding comes from the Santiago Network on Loss and Damage, a Switzerland-based United Nations mechanism funded by voluntary contributions from developed countries and the international community.
The Kenyan funding will be administered by the national government and used to identify Kenyan communities that have suffered losses as a result of climate-induced droughts, floods, crop failures and other extreme weather events.
Festus Ng’eno, principle secretary for Kenya’s Environment, Climate Change and Forestry, announced the achievement at a recent U.N. climate meeting in Bonn, Germany. He said the assistance is a milestone as Kenya is only the second country globally to benefit from the fund. Vanuatu, a low-lying archipelago, was the first.
In a Facebook post, the State Department for Environment and Climate Change in Kenya said, “Despite enduring some of East Africa’s most devastating climate shocks, Kenya has never fully measured the true scale of what has been lost. That is set to change.”
