Nature Kenya is a national CSO that is widely spread in Kenya and has skilled staff. Nature Kenya brings experience drawn from successful implementation of over 100 projects over the last 15 years across the country. Nature Kenya has worked with Mijikenda Kaya Forests Management Committees indirectly through partnership with the National Museum through Coastal Forest Conservation Unit (CFCU), Kaya Gandini and Kaya Waa are categorized as Important Biodiversity (Bird) Areas where Nature Kenya have great interest in terms of conservation.

With facilitation by the SGP, Nature Kenya can be of great help in ensuring that the GEF global targets and SGP Kenya targets are met. Nature Kenya is seeking grants from GEF SGP -UNDP to build capacities of SGP grantees under Sixth Operational Phase of the GEF Small Grants Programme in Kenya focusing on Mijikenda Sacred Kaya Forests, Kilifi and Kwale Counties. Nature Kenya will ensure capacity of SGP grantees is enhanced for effective delivery of the projects. Capacity development is more often than not assumed and not given rightful recognition in budgeting, yet it is a core programme of the GEF and the SGP. There is need to enhance the governance capacity of SGP grantees since with good governance and leadership there is order and focus on delivering results. Project management capacity including monitoring and reporting and focus on outputs and impacts are critical elements that are needed by almost all the grantees. To understand more of the capacity gaps faced by the SGP grantees, Nature Kenya will conduct baseline assessments of all the SGP grantees in Mijikenda Kaya Forests, Kilifi and Kwale Counties.

Nature Kenya is present in three counties at the coastal region (i.e. Kilifi, Tana River and Taita Taveta). At these counties Nature Kenya work with partners that include County Governments, key government agencies (such as Kenya Forest Service, Kenya Wildlife Service, KEFRI and NEMA etc.), CSOs (both local and International) and local community groups. Nature Kenya works also with local communities called Site Support Groups (SSGs) and has built internal programme and staff capacity to be able to assist SSGs to deliver site-based projects. Nature Kenya has experience working with local communities surrounding the Community Conserved Areas (CCAs) and committees managed these areas, these sites include Dakatcha woodland, Tana Delta, Yala Wetland and Tiriki Cultural Forests. This experience will be replicated in the involvement with the local communities? surrounding MijiKenda Kaya Sacred Forests. Local institutions (CSOs) at Kaya Sacred Forests where Nature Kenya will be building capacities will benefit from continued technical, moral and sometimes financial support when donors choose to fund site projects.

This project will enhance the ability of the Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme (GEF SGP) to achieve the core objective to provide grants for initiatives of communities and civil society organizations, to enable them implement projects in the focal areas of biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation, and sustainable land management. With the limited capacities of the local institutions supported by GEF SGP-UNDP in Mijikenda Kaya Forests, Kilifi and Kwale Counties (SGP grantees), Nature Kenya seeks support from GEF SGP to build capacities of these grantees in the targeted areas of call of proposal which include but not limited to; organizational development, governance, leadership, financial management, participatory monitoring, proposal development, use of social media for development and resource mobilization as well as enhance their skills on monitoring and evaluation including reporting and communicating results and the sustainability of institutional operations and project impacts. Also, this project proposes to provide specific platforms for communities to share their experiences and critically reflect and analyze the various internal and external factors that affect their performance. The results of this analysis can provide valuable lessons for policy-makers, including the types of institutional frameworks that can promote effective environmental conservation at the local, national and international levels.

In order to report on a project?s performance, grantees need to develop indicators at the various levels of results. However, most groups find it difficult to develop and use indicators of performance, especially for conservation projects. Nature Kenya will use its diverse experiences to train communities on how to design projects and develop indicators that can capture performance at the outputs, outcomes and impacts levels. These training sessions will build upon the knowledge and experiences of the grantees and use examples relevant to their various contexts. SGP grants will provide an opportunity to inject resources to bridge gaps in financial needs which unless managed optimally, may not bring forth the impacts that are intended. This project will address this by enabling grantees to gain requisite skills and competencies that are not only necessary for effective implementation of the projects, but also create frameworks for future engagement through planning and fund raising.