?A lot of climate change finance could go into private gain,' warns Transparency International official in Nairobi
NAIROBI (AlertNet) – Monitoring of climate change programmes in Kenya needs to be stepped up, because the rising amount of funding allocated to them is at risk of being misused, corruption experts say.
A growing number of non-governmental organisations are launching climate change initiatives in the East African nation, in part to win donor support as the financial crisis hitting rich nations causes them to curb aid for other sectors like health, anti-graft watchdog Transparency International (TI) told AlertNet.
But some of those aid groups may not have the expertise to run successful activities to tackle climate change, and not enough money is gettting through to the worst-affected communities, according to Judy Ndichu who heads up work on climate change governance at TI’s regional office in Nairobi.
Worse, in countries like Kenya, where corruption is widespread, chunks of the cash could be siphoned off for personal benefit, she warned.
“There are risks involved with corruption in the climate change sector. And if they are not addressed properly, a lot of the climate change finance could go into private gain,” said Ndichu. “The result would be that the people on the ground will not get the assistance they so badly need.”
While there is little evidence so far that graft has invaded climate change programmes, Ndichu is concerned about the sums spent on conferences held in Nairobi’s high-class hotels and participants’ allowances to attend them.
“Conferences on how to tackle climate change are important, but sometimes there are too many, and I feel that some (of the) money should go to the ground,” she told AlertNet. “More should go on helping the farmers or herders with methods aimed at better agricultural practices that tackle the negative effects of climate change.”
Despite the increase in climate change projects, Ndichu said significant results have yet to be felt at the local level. And unregistered groups - known as “briefcase NGOs” - are being set up to take advantage of new climate change money in Kenya, she warned.
There is also a risk of duplication and double accounting. For example, proposals have reportedly been submitted to plant trees in forests, like Kenya’s Mau Forest, where significant afforestation work has already been carried out and there is minimal ongoing risk to the environment.
WEAK AUDITING
International funding for efforts to adapt to the expected impacts of climate change, including more frequent droughts and floods and rising seas, and to pursue low-carbon development is increasing steadily, and could soar in the future.
At the 2009 U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen, rich nations promised to channel up to $30 billion in “fast start” climate finance to vulnerable countries between 2010 and 2102, rising to an annual $100 billion by 2020. Kenya and other East African nations are in line to receive a share of that aid.
The Kenyan government has earmarked annual spending of $130 million to fund climate change activities, with about half of it being channelled through Kenyan NGOs since 2010. The rest is used for government initiatives such as irrigation projects and cattle purchase schemes to help drought-hit herders.
Mwenda Mithika from the Climate Change Working Group, a consortium of NGOs, told AlertNet he did not think climate programmes would be undermined by corruption because donor nations monitor the use of their money well.
Ndichu is less confident. “Already corruption is being felt in climate change activities but it has not reached serious levels,” she said. “Issues of corruption are already a problem for humanitarian aid in Kenya, and most of the donor money given to NGOS to combat climate is not properly audited.”
Her own research, which she presented at an international conference in Nairobi, shows there has been no proper audit of climate funds received by Kenya and most other African countries. Unlike in the health sector, for example, there has not been adequate reporting on the bulk of climate aid expenditure, Ndichu said.
Transparency International’s 2011 corruption perceptions index ranks Kenya 154 out of 182 countries in terms of perception of clean governance, with a score of 2.2 out of 10 (where 0 indicates highly corrupt), suggesting that graft remains endemic.
Given the risk that climate finance could be misused, the Berlin-based watchdog set up a programme in Kenya around two years ago that aims to build capacity and partnerships to strengthen climate finance governance, policy development, implementation and oversight.
“Climate finance, under ‘fast-track’ and longer term arrangements, risks failing to achieve adaptation and mitigation objectives if governance and capacity deficits exist,” Ndichu said. “Ensuring good climate finance governance requires sufficient levels of transparency, accountability and integrity at both the international and local levels.”
But the technical complexities of the institutions and issues involved make it hard for ordinary citizens to hold governments to account, she added.
“Most people affected by climate change lack sufficient capacity to participate in climate policy development and implementation, and climate finance monitoring,” she explained.
LOCAL PEOPLE SCEPTICAL
Some communities also doubt that they will benefit directly from money spent on climate change projects, saying aid in general has done little to strengthen their resilience to extreme weather up to now.
“Here in Northern Kenya, we are still living in abject poverty,” said Hussein Mohammed, a herder who lost a lot of his cattle during severe droughts in 2009 and 2011.
“Big people drive here in big cars - some take our photos, and we do not know what they are used for. We never get to see some of them again after they visit our communities; they just spend a day here and leave,” he added.
Many people hit hard by drought have yet to implement measures that help them become more resilient to such climate-related problems. For example, many farmers do not have irrigation systems, nor are they trying out more drought-tolerant crops.
Ndichu urged the Kenyan government to be strict with the funding it provides to NGOs working on climate change - a view echoed by Germano Mwabu, an economics professor at the University of Nairobi.
“There is a need for better monitoring and more effective audit methods in climate change money,” he said, adding that the government should deter graft by setting up an oversight body and making information public.
“There is no serious corruption (in) climate change as compared to health, but the way forward should be that the (Kenyan) parliament should enact good laws to govern how donor money is spent,” Mwabu recommended.
Gitonga Njeru is a science journalist based in Nairobi.
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