2.4 Environmental sustainability, climate change and resilience

As noted by the project midterm review, the design of the project M&E system was lacking in several areas, especially the use of ‘SMART’ indicators, and the consolidation of key output and outcome data from project implementing partners and beneficiaries. As such, the evaluation could only access a limited set of project reports, and relied on qualitative data and anecdotal evidence to assess results.

UNDP is compiling lessons from the EEP, including those identified by the midterm review, to use in the design of a new project, the Green Economy Youth Activation Programme (GrEYAP). This new project has a more modest resource target of $1.45 million, and has refocused its youth employment efforts towards agro-forestry value chains. These were prioritized due to their potential for expansion, identified by a county-level market study conducted by UNDP, and for contribution to the national target of 10 percent tree cover by 2022 (7.2 percent in 2021 according to MEF).55

Finding 11. UNDP is supporting interventions in the small-scale mining sector to improve social and environmental standards and align with new regulations. Upstream policy support has been effective in developing guidelines, while downstream training activities are unlikely to achieve their intended impact.

UNDP has built on a cluster of projects to support the mining sector to raise the social and environmental standards of the small-scale mining sector. Under the current CPD, the objective has been to align small-scale operations with policy and legislation, and the projects have been effective in conducting sectoral assessments and establishing upstream policy and regulatory frameworks. However, training and guidelines for small-scale miners are likely to have limited effectiveness on raising environmental and social standards, as they were not sufficiently tailored to the specific needs and challenges of artisanal miners, resulting in limited uptake. A further constraint potentially impacting the mining programmes was the limited UNDP engagement with the Ministry of Mining in the early stages of the project. Though the Ministry of Mining was a key counterpart, MEF was selected as the main partner, and low buy-in at the initial stages limited the design of project activities, resulting in a lack of activities/ outputs to increase the formalization of artisanal miners, which in turn is likely to hinder the overall impact of the project.

CPD OUTCOME 4: By 2022, people in Kenya benefit from sustainable natural resource management and a resilient green economy Output 4.1: Government, private sector and communities have enhanced capacity for increased access to cost- effective and clean energy Output 4.2: Improved institutional and community capacity to deliver pro-poor, sustainable natural resource management initiatives Output 4.3: National and county governments have improved capacities to reduce disaster risk and climate change impact Output 4.4: Communities have improved adaptive capacity to disasters including from climate change

55 http://www.environment.go.ke/?p=8211