Kenyan charity roots for nature-based solutions to water stress

A Kenyan charity on Tuesday urged corporate organizations to embrace nature-based solutions to water stress that has escalated amid climate change and rapid population growth.

Eddy Njoroge, president of Upper Tana Nairobi Water Fund Trust (UTNWFT) said at a forum held in Nairobi that unsustainable farming practices in the Upper Tana catchment basin, coupled with climate change, population growth and increased industrial demand are threatening the supply of water to the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

In 2015, The Nature Conservancy launched the Upper Tana-Nairobi Water Fund (UTNWF) to help secure the source of water for Nairobi. The UTNWF was the first of its kind in Africa.

Njoroge noted that by using nature-based solutions, enough water can be secured for Nairobi and a situation of scarcity of water like what happened in Cape Town in South Africa in 2018 can be averted.

In 2018, residents and industry in Cape Town faced the prospect of their taps being turned off and needing to line up to collect water at supply points after the watersheds of the Greater Cape Town region dried up.

Njoroge said that actions by industry are a fundamental part of any action for climate and biodiversity, and are an essential component of the overall global effort to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

He urged the private sector to help capitalize on the trust's endowment fund of 500 million shillings (4.4 million U.S. dollars), noting that so far 1.9 million dollars has been raised.

Chris Kiptoo, principal secretary in the Ministry of Environment and Forestry said that business leaders have the capacity, resources, and commercial interest to lead the way in conservation. He added that catchment conservation supports businesses and consumers directly and would be a strategic threat if access to enough quantity and quality of water was to come under strain.

The upper Tana basin is the source of over 90 percent of water consumed in Nairobi and 65 percent of hydropower production in Kenya. Statistics indicate that Nairobi requires about 750,000 cubic meters of water daily but is only able to meet 80 percent of the demand.