Nairobi, May 1 -- An activist walked into an Environment and Lands Court in 2024 with a petition that laid bare the pressures facing Kenya's most ambitious climate finance programme. Homa Bay County, which had received Sh358 million in climate resilience funding, stood accused of implementing projects without environmental impact assessments, presenting forged receipts totalling Sh1.485 million, and failing to constitute the oversight committees the law requires.

The county had not set up its Steering Committee, Technical Committee or Ward Committees, the petition alleged. A NEMA official had already written to warn the county that an Environmental Impact Assessment licence was mandatory for each project being rolled out across its 40 wa...