Young adolescent recommendations for advancing water, food, and sanitation security in Kenya: Qualitative insights

Climate change and related extreme weather events (EWE) exacerbate resource insecurities that threaten youth wellbeing. We conducted participatory mapping workshops (PMW) to generate recommendations for reducing food, water, and sanitation insecurity from young adolescents in Kenya.

We conduced two-day multi-media PMWs that involved drawing, discussions, emoji descriptions, song creation, and writing, in six climate-affected Kenyan sites (Nairobi, Naivasha, Kilifi, Kisumu, Kalobeyei refugee settlement, Isiolo) with young adolescents aged 10-14 from 2022 to 2023. We applied framework thematic analysis informed by resource insecurity theory.

Participants (n = 118; mean age: 12.1, standard deviation: 1.33) included adolescent boys (50.8 %) and girls (49.2 %). Overarching themes included recommendations to advance food security (e.g., food affordability, food production, food safety, food access), water security (e.g., water quality and safety, water infrastructure, water sufficiency), and sanitation security (e.g., waste management, hygiene and health education, sanitation infrastructure). These recommendations spanned government (e.g., reduce food tax, provide seeds/fertilizer), community (e.g., mutual aid, hygiene awareness), and household (e.g., reduce water wastage, youth safety collecting resources) levels.

Young adolescents identified multi-level solutions to advance water, food, and sanitation insecurity in climate-affected Kenyan regions. Climate and poverty interventions should amplify youth recommendations to advance health and wellbeing in Kenya.