Kenya Conservation Policy Local Works Project

Project background

The Kenya Conservation Policy Project was a three-year initiative implemented by KWCA under a fixed award by USAID. The project focused on empowering KWCA as a locally led organisation with the institutional capacity to influence policy change — resulting in policy and legal incentives at national and county levels, supporting conservancies as a viable, sustainable economic land use model, and delivering benefits to local communities and locally led development.

Problem statement

Biodiversity decline in Kenya is exacerbating. The negative impacts of climate change in the form of increased and prolonged drought and floods, changes in land use and management, human–wildlife conflict, wildlife crime, rangeland degradation and habitat fragmentation from human activities are among the threats to wildlife.

The situation is worsened by the mismatch between policies and practice, conflict of laws, and under-financed public institutions charged with conservation and related functions. Livelihood options for pastoral communities — especially in the rangelands — and the tourism industry, which has historically contributed between 10 and 15% of Kenya's GDP, are threatened. Incidents of resource-use conflict are on the rise, while rural poverty is widening.

Project goal

To empower KWCA, its landscape associations and conservancies to solve development challenges by addressing policy gaps and building institutional capacity.

Result area 1: Land, environment and natural resources policy advanced

• Support conservancies to strengthen the land tenure rights of community conservancies through transition to more equitable community land tenure.
• Advocate for reforms to wildlife policies, laws and regulations that advance adoption of conservation as an economically beneficial land use.
• Advocate for the development of county-level policies that recognise and entrench community-based conservation and locally led development.
• Support selected landscape associations to build capacity to adapt to and mitigate climate change impacts.

Result area 2: An enabling framework for devolved, locally led conservation

• Reinforce wildlife policies and laws to recognise, support and incentivise community-led conservation as an economically beneficial and preferred land use that attracts private sector investment.
• Enhance conservancy visibility and linkages with the private sector and investment opportunities for sustained development.

Result area 3: KWCA transformed and leading the growth of conservancies

• Further empower KWCA with improved internal control systems, governance and management capacities, and the establishment of a physical conservancies networking and learning hub.