Field Visit: Joining the Dots to Build Climate Resilience in East Africa

People living in the drylands of Africa face many challenges. Drought and land degradation threaten their crops and livestock, while rising demand for resources is driving deforestation and water scarcity. Climate change only intensifies these problems via unpredictable drought and flooding.

Programme Manager Anne de Puybusque travelled to Kenya and Ethiopia to see how Trafigura Foundation’s partner BOMA is helping dryland communities to simultaneously strengthen their livelihoods and the ecosystems that underpin
them.

Why visit partners in the field?

All of the partnerships we fund have already been through a careful selection and due diligence process. This makes sure that the initiatives are sound and effective and fit with our strategy, which is focused on helping people and ecosystems to meet the challenges of climate change.

But it is essential to see how the programmes are working on the ground. This way, we can better appreciate the impact of our support as well as the challenges facing our partners and the people they are serving. It’s a reality check that informs the design of our partnerships.

The Foundation funds BOMA in Ethiopia, so why visit Kenya?

BOMA launched its Rural Entrepreneur Access Programme model, or REAP, in northern Kenya in 2008. REAP provides support and mentoring to establish savings groups and small businesses that lift people out of poverty. BOMA pioneered a climate resilience adapted model call REAP for Climate Resilience and, with support from the Foundation and other philanthropies, has been implementing it in Ethiopia since 2022.

The Green REAP program encourages people to establish businesses that support the sustainable management of natural resources such as timber and water, and to take steps to adapt to climate change, such as installing storage tanks and diversifying crops.

Visiting Kenya was a chance for me to witness BOMA’s most mature programming, talk to field staff and participants, and get a better feel for the model, which BOMA hopes to scale to more parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

What did you learn?

At my first stop in Isiolo County, I saw how BOMA applies its model flexibly according to the needs of local pastoralist communities, including components targeting youth and young mothers, and how it has increased its reach and impact by cooperating with government agencies.

At my second stop, further north in Marsabit, I saw how Green REAP is helping women tap forest-related supply chains to create their own businesses, including collecting gums and resins, and producing honey.

The area is dominated by Mount Marsabit, a forested oasis in an otherwise arid landscape that means water is available for some of the participants to go into farming. With seed funding from BOMA and loans from savings groups, women have bought seeds and fertilizer, planted fruit trees around their homes, or begun trading farm produce. Some of those who started out running small kiosks have since taken the next step, getting into things like keeping poultry.

This represents a power shift in a patriarchal society. And some women said their husbands were relieved that they were setting up their own businesses, and that the family was no longer so dependent on their livestock, which can be hit hard in times of drought

What is ‘green’ about programming in Ethiopia?

After Kenya, I travelled to Yabelo, a town in southern Ethiopia. I arrived at the end of the rainy season, so everything was green, the livestock looked healthy. But people there worry about their environment, including how deforestation in the surrounding hills and the impacts of climate change could lead to serious water shortages.

As in Kenya, BOMA has targeted some of the poorest women, including those who were felling trees in the forest to make charcoal for sale. The programme has helped them switch to more sustainable activities, like trading and farming, and provides training in areas like waste management.

Some of the women I spoke with said they no longer needed to go back to charcoal-making and wouldn’t allow anyone in their group to do so, because they feared that this could worsen environmental problems for their communities in future.

So, there is a real “before-and-after” effect in the ability of those women to cope with both everyday challenges and shocks, and a foundation has been laid to strengthen aspects of the programme such as encouraging reforestation that will further boost the resilience of these communities.

Are there options for building resilience beyond classic rural livelihoods?

Technical progress can also be the spark for business development.

My last stop was in a remote community near Teltele, another town in the Borena Zone. A different project there has helped communities install solar panels to generate electricity.

One of the women’s groups supported by BOMA has created a much-needed business of providing electricity for charging people’s phones and basic lighting for a dozen households. With access to energy, another woman was thinking of setting up a hairdressing salon for customers who previously had to walk two hours to the next town.

This was a good illustration of the wide range of businesses that our partners can support – whether in Ethiopia, Kenya, or another country – in order to lift people out of poverty and strengthen the resilience of their communities.

What was main lesson learned from this trip?

That everything is connected. Any programme must take into account the wide range of factors – such as access to health care, education, energy or water – that influence both the opportunities and obstacles for intervention.

Addressing the impacts of climate change means ecosystem management always must be in the mix. So we and our partners have to join all the dots and work closely together to advance the solutions that can make a difference, both for the long term and at scale. Our partnership with BOMA is a good example of how that can be achieved.

Click here for more on the Foundation’s partnership with BOMA