The following projects were carried out by the current Dept of ECS Academic Members of staff, and though some of them were implemented before the Institute was formally established in 2011, they were key to the birthing of the Institute:
- 2012-2015. Implementation of Project Activities for Building Adaptive Capacity Through Implementation of a Resilience Framework in The Lake Victoria Basin: Implementing a Resilience Framework to Support Climate Change Adaptation in the Mount Elgon Region of the Lake Victoria Basin. Conducted through African Centre for Collaborative Earth System Science (ACCESS, Nairobi). Funded by International Union for Conservation of Nature Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office (IUCN-ESARO), USD217,139.
- December 2010 to December 2011. Building Climate Change Adaptation Capacity at African Universities: A Proposal to Establish the Climate Adaptation Research Institute (CARI) at the University of Nairobi. In collaboration with Prof. Shem Wandiga, Dr. Gilbert Ouma, Dr. Maggie Opondo, Prof. Joash Aluoch, and Prof. Madara Ogot. Funded by the Open Science Institute (OSI). Funding: US$7,024,398 (OSI – US$3,172,398; UoN in-kind – US$3,852,000).
- 2006-2010. Integrating Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change into Sustainable Development Policy Planning and Implementation in Eastern and Southern Africa: KENYA Pilot Project Design: Increasing Community Resilience to Drought in Makueni District. In collaboration with Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation (CSTI), and Arid Lands Resource Management Project (ALRMP – GoK). Funded by UNEP-GEF. Funding: US$300,000.
- 2007-2008. Strengthening Community-Based Adaptation to Climate-Sensitive Malaria in Kakamega and Kericho Districts, Western Kenya Highlands. In collaboration with Centre for Science, Technology and Innovations (CSTI). Funded by ACCCA (Advancing Capacity to Support Climate Change Adaptation). Funding: US$70,000.
- 2002-2005. An assessment of vulnerability and adaptation to climate variability and climate change impacts on malaria and health in the Lake Victoria region in East Africa (coordinated by Kenya National Academy of Science: with consortium of scientists from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda). Funded by AIACC Project, Washington DC, USA. Funding: US$285,000.
- 2003-2004. Global International Waters Assessment (GIWA-UNEP) - The East African Rift Valley Lakes sub-region no. 47 (with consortium of scientists from Kenya, Ethiopia, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa). Funding: US$30,000; GIWA-UNEP.
The AFAS (African Climate and Environment Center Future African Savannas) is a new programme that is hosted conjointly at the Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny (UFHB) with its African Centre of Excellence on Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainable Agriculture (CEA-CCBAD) in Côte d’Ivoire and the University of Nairobi (UoN) with its Institute for Climate Change and Adaptation (ICCA) in Kenya. It has been established to tackle the challenge of Africa’s sustainable development in light of the climate change and loss of biodiversity challenges with a focus on Africa’s vast savanna regions. The AFAS will develop both social-ecological resilience and human capacities and facilitate knowledge exchange across sectors and disciplines to overcome the barriers to the implementation of innovative approaches on climate change adaptation and biodiversity conservation at the interfaces between science and policy,
science and practice as well as policy and practice practice. The project is funded by DAAD for five years initially, and the German partners are The Center for Development Research (ZEF) at the University of Bonn (lead partner) and the Global South Studies Center (GSSC), University of Cologne. Press release of the University of Bonn announcing our new AFAS project (https://www.uni-bonn.de/news/091-2021/).
The ARUA Centre of Excellence in Climate and Development (ARUA-CD) is an initiative of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA). It is set up to undertake research, training and influencing to substantially contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in the face of climate change. The three Centres of Excellence (CoE) in Africa are: University of Cape Town - Climate and Development Initiative (ACDI) as CoE for the Southern Africa regional hub and the CoE Secretariat; University of Ghana - Institute for Environment and Sanitation Studies (IESS) as CoE for West African regional hub; University of Nairobi - Institute for Climate Change and Adaptation (ICCA) as CoE for East African regional hub. https://arua-cd.org/