DOI: 10.36347/sjavs.2017.v04i07.003

Pages: 267-272

Abstract: Kenya like other sub-Saharan African countries face uncertainty and potential risks of climate change and have been integrating climate considerations into various legal and governance instruments for some time. Notably, there has been progress made in planning and implementing policies, projects and programs in key economic sectors in order to align Kenya with the international community’s approach to promote climate resilience thereby reducing the negative impact on the environment and on people’s lives and livelihoods. The research assessed the climate change vulnerability and risks in Meru County and focused on 20 stakeholders from each of the sampled Sub County namely Igembe North, Igembe Central and Igembe South. The research was guided by two objectives and a stakeholders’ questionnaire was used to solicit the data that was required for the product. The collected data was cleaned, coded and analyzed using SPSS version while frequency tables and percentages summarized and presented the quantitative results. The results showed varied risks faced in Igembe in the context of climate change, for instance food and water insecurity which was very dominant. The findings showed that majority of the people (91.7%) most vulnerable to climate change were the small holder farmers, (88.3%) children and (78.3%) female headed house-holds. The result also indicated that the major possible solution to enhance resilience to climate change was agroforestry practices (95.7%) and community capacity building and sensitization (81.7%). These findings will contribute to the policy-makers, development practitioners and governments’ efforts of finding more innovative ways of creating targeted interventions for promoting climate resilient livelihoods through enhancing community coping strategies and participation of marginalized groups in policy issues.