The CDR Nexus: Convergence of Climate Change Adaptation, Disaster Risk Reduction, and Land Restoration in Kajiado, Kitui, and Makueni Counties, Kenya

Experts have been calling for the integration of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction into local administrative units for decades. With the emergence of an international land restoration agenda, a growing interest exists to understand how landscape restoration can increase local resilience while catalyzing the integration of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. This project
explores the interconnections and potential for achieving greater synergies among these three agendas, which we refer to as the CDR nexus. Kenya has committed to restore 5.1 million hectares of land under the AFR100 initiative (see box on page 2). One challenge for achieving this is that the country has a devolved system of government in which many CDR functions are implemented by 47 different subnational county administrations. Although general agreement exists that actions to achieve the goals of these policy areas should converge, some institutional barriers need to be overcome. For example,
climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and land restoration initiatives are often situated in different ministries and departments. In addition, county administrative borders do not follow landscape or hydrologic boundaries that are ideal for land restoration planning. Sustainable financing is another concern. Although there is a growing call to “unlock” private investments for land restoration, merging a profit orientation with the social nature of development is not always easy. Therefore, developing institutional frameworks to guide these new activities toward county land restoration objectives is critical.