Kenya’s drylands account for over 83% of the country’s land mass and support around six million people, or 15 percent of Kenya’s population, 70% of the country’s livestock and 85% of wildlife populations (GoK, 2019). Climate change is threatening the livelihoods of this population as well as the fragile, dynamic and challenging environment; both often marginalized in terms of infrastructure, investment and policies (Lynch, 2015). The negative effects of climate change are exacerbated by poverty, food insecurity and low levels of development in the region and other low- and medium income countries (LMICs) (Langer et al., 2015). Women in dryland Kenya, as in other sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries where climate change aggravates poverty, are the most vulnerable to effects of climate change because of their close interaction with the environment (Mourdoukouta, 2016; UNDP 2011); being closely involved in pastro-agricultural activities since 60% of women in SSA work in agriculture (WFP, 2021). The women are often responsible for growing food, collecting water, and sourcing firewood for their families; activities that are greatly affected by extreme climate change effects such as prolonged drought spells, floods and emergence of pests and diseases for crops and livestock. Consequently, they are faced with climate induced vulnerabilities such as gender based violence, early marriages for girls, heat stress and less time for education – (IISD, 2023: Nzengya and Maguta, 2021); worsened by lack of economic empowerment. Apart from productive labour, women also perform reproductive and socio-cultural roles that may be exacerbated by extreme weather events such as flood induced diseases and heat stress. These triple responsibilities consume a lot of energy and time, most especially in scenarios where there is lack or limited access to climate-smart and labour-saving technologies and innovations.

Vulnerabilities of women to extreme climate change effects are worsened by lack of economic empowerment especially in the disadvantaged dry lands of Kenya. Interventions that create greater economic empowerment for women are necessary to mitigate health and livelihood related impacts of climate change. Women’s needs, expertise, and opinion cannot be ignored if we are to create a truly climate-resilient future and achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goal 5 and mainstream gender issues in SGDs 13 and 15 (IISD, 2023). The goal of C-LaSAIR is to co-design and innovate scalable climate-smart, labor-saving technologies in fish, poultry and crop production activities to mitigate the vulnerabilities of women and girls to climate change effects. In particular, the project outputs are aimed to economically empower women and girls and maximize local capabilities for agricultural production and opportunities in drylands of Elgeyo-Marakwet, Kisumu and Turkana counties of Kenya. The specific objectives (SOs) will be: (i) Specific Objective 1 (SO1): To increase labor-saving, locally innovated water-harvesting techniques for agricultural productivity and home consumption by at least 25% in the drylands; (ii) SO2: To increase the use of automated solar-based irrigation systems in silvo-agricultural systems by at least 25% in the drylands; (iii) SO3: To co-innovate circular agrosilvopastoral technologies and practices that are climate resilient and focusing on beekeeping, poultry, fruits, sorghum, groundnut & cowpea production; (iv) SO4: To improve food and nutrition security and climate resilience through rice-paddy based fish farming and locally formulated diets for nutritional security; and (v) SO5: To Strengthen local nutrition-sensitive fruit, sorghum, groundnut, and fish value chains in the drylands.