Kenya's Institutional Readiness to Access and Equitably Deliver Loss and Damage Fund Resources: A Political Economy Analysis of Fiduciary Capacity, Community Participation, and ASAL Resilience (2024–2026)

                @article{CRSIJ26000420,
                  author = {Dr CPA Ismael Mbuvi },
                  title = {Kenya's Institutional Readiness to Access and Equitably Deliver Loss and Damage Fund Resources: A Political Economy Analysis of Fiduciary Capacity, Community Participation, and ASAL Resilience  (2024–2026)},
                  journal = {Cosmo Research and Science International Journal},
                  year = {2026},
                  volume = {2},
                  number = {2},
                  pages = {667-674},
                  issn = {3108-1584},
                  url = {https://cosmorsij.com/published/CRSIJ26000420.pdf},
                  abstract = {The operationalization of the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) has moved the debate on climate-induced loss and damage from diplomatic principle to institutional practice. For countries such as Kenya, the central question is no longer whether finance will exist, but whether domestic institutions can access it competitively and deliver it equitably to the communities that bear the heaviest losses, particularly in the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs). This article frames Kenya's readiness as a political economy problem rather than a purely technical one. Drawing on political settlements theory, principal–agent accountability, and the procedural justice logic of locally led adaptation, it develops an integrated analytical lens, termed the Settlement-Mediated Readiness Framework (SMRF), to examine three readiness dimensions: fiduciary capacity, community participation, and ASAL resilience. Using qualitative document analysis of FRLD decisions, Kenyan fiscal and climate policy instruments, and programme evidence from 2024 to 2026, the article argues that Kenya possesses unusually strong formal architecture for devolved climate finance, yet faces a fiduciary–participation trade-off in which safeguards demanded by international funders pull decision-making upward, while equity demands pull it downward. The article contributes a reconceptualization of readiness as a negotiated distribution of authority, four testable propositions for future empirical work, and policy recommendations for a nested loss and damage delivery system.},
                  keywords = {Loss and damage, climate finance, political settlements, fiduciary capacity, locally led adaptation, ASALs, devolution, Kenya},
                  month = {September}
        }