In a country where agriculture remains a key driver of economic and social development, climate change projections for East Africa (Kenya in particular) paint a disturbing picture in efforts to achieve food resilience and security. Projections of increasing temperatures, reduced rainfall, seasonal shifts, and more frequent climate shocks (droughts and floods) are set to exacerbate the challenges faced by an agriculture sector that is already plagued by low productivity and food crop production. Factors that have led to this include increasing urbanisation and subdivision of high and medium potential land, limited access to finance and quality inputs, low capacities of national institutions to support the sector, and an over reliance on rainfed agriculture.

The LISTEN project seeks to strengthen institutional capacities for climate change adaptation at county level, and increase smallholder famers’ knowledge and adoption of climate-smart irrigation technologies and practices, while applying an Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) approach along the Ewaso Nyíro basin. The project adopts a nexus approach to implementation, i.e., recognising and leveraging on-going and complementary activities of agencies across and in different sectors, drawing in community support in these initiatives, and carrying out service delivery with support from the private sector, where possible. The project is anchored in county government ownership, and has as its ambition to realise scale by working at county, landscape, community, and farmer levels.