Connectivity is more than access. In #Kenya, communities are using community-owned infrastructure to support climate resilience, environmental monitoring and local knowledge sharing.
Read the story: https://www.apc.org/en/blog/how-kenyan-communities-are-shaping-connectivity-environmental-resilience
LocNet-supported initiatives demonstrate how community-centred connectivity can help communities generate and use hyperlocal data, strengthen digital sovereignty, and build resilience.
#CommunityNetworks #DigitalSovereignty #ClimateJustice #EnvironmentalJustice
How Kenyan communities are shaping connectivity for environmental resilience
With current technological shifts and a deepening climate crisis, the concept of community-centred connectivity is a vital form of grassroots community ownership of tech. At its core, a community-centred connectivity initiative (CCCI) is where local people – rather than large commercial providers – build, own and maintain their own digital infrastructure to meet their specific needs. By taking control of the technology, these communities are not just going online, but they are also securing their survival in an increasingly volatile environment, and doing so in their context and urgency. The intersection of climate justice and community-centred connectivity decentralises digital infrastructure and empowers communities to gather the hyperlocal data necessary to anticipate climate shocks, thereby transforming passive connectivity into active, community-led resilience. This approach treats digital access not as a luxury, but as a tool for environmental self-determination.To support this, the Local Networks initiative (LocNet), a collaboration between the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and Rhizomatica, has been instrumental in fostering digital autonomy. In line with LocNet’s strategic plan across various regions and countries, microgrants are offered to address urgent community needs. This includes a catalytic initiative designed to provide small, strategic funding to CCCIs for the 2025-’26 grant cycle in Kenya. These catalytic grants are specifically tailored for grassroots groups that have deep community roots but require the resources to bridge the gap between simple internet access and impactful, technology-driven climate action. This year, four Kenyan organisations were selected to work in environment resilience and climate justice with digital connectivity as an enabler. These groups demonstrate that when you place the tools of technology into the hands of local stewards, the impact is profound.Why focus on climate justice?For many communities, the climate crisis is not a distant dystopia: it is a daily reality. From unpredictable rainfall patterns disrupting agriculture to coastal degradation affecting traditional livelihoods, the environment, which is the bedrock of local existence, is undergoing profound change. Climate justice acknowledges that those who have contributed the least to the global climate crisis often bear the brunt of its most severe consequences. Focusing on the intersection of climate and connectivity is essential, and without access to real-time information, early-warning systems or tools, marginalised populations are left exposed to environmental shocks. By integrating climate action into community networks, these initiatives address systemic inequalities, ensuring that the transition to a sustainable future is equitable. Technology becomes more than just a convenience; it becomes a tool for justice that amplifies local voices, protects natural resources and builds the resilience necessary to adapt to a changing planet. The five initiatives supported this year demonstrate this in practice. Operating in an area prone to floods, the team from Digital Rurals developed an AI-powered prediction and alert platform in Mavoko, working with local residents who are often the first to experience the impact of extreme weather. Through community co-design workshops, they mapped flood zones and drainage issues while validating platform features with local volunteers. The resulting multi-channel system uses SMS and WhatsApp and is now scaling through an MoU (memorandum of understanding) with the Kenya Meteorological Department (Kenya MET) to integrate hyperlocalised data into national early warning systems. To maintain accuracy, they employ community champions and an admin dashboard to validate reports and prevent false alerts.In Ugunja, Kijiji Yeetu is serving communities disproportionately affected by mining and poor waste management, through environmental transparency. Their Mtandao Hewani project consists of an IoT (Internet of Things) sensor. Central to this project are net wardens spread across villages, who drive digital literacy and help residents use mobile phones as instruments of civic power. They also published a technical brief on their process for other networks to learn from. Kijiji Yeetu's technical brief, developed to share its learnings with other community networks. Bahari CBO is a women-led initiative works in coastal regions where seaweed farming is a primary livelihood. Because seaweed is sensitive to fluctuating water temperatures, the project deployed sensors to track sea temperatures. This helps women avoid time poverty, a condition where environmental uncertainty forces them to spend excessive time checking on the state of the seaweed. This allows them to reclaim their valuable time for other purposes. They have since presented a policy brief to the Kenyan Ministry of Fish and Blue Economy with hopes of turning this data into bankable information.Athi Community Network in Igembe South, Meru, is bridging the information poverty gap. Using low-power Raspberry Pi servers, they host an offline-first library of climate-smart agricultural information available in the local Kimeru language. This allows farmers to access credible, high-bandwidth climate information without incurring heavy internet costs, effectively serving as an information hub for rural resilience. AthiCN developed a climate-resilience information database that delivers climate and resilience information in the Kimeru language. Photo: AthiCN The role of technical accompanimentA challenge for many community groups is the gap between vision and execution. While they possess the knowledge and the drive to solve pressing problems, the technical expertise gap often hinders effective execution to turn those ideas into functioning systems. By offering mentorship, technical training and collaborative space, these grants empower organisations to move beyond the traditional tech-for-tech's sake approach, ensuring their work is sustainable, locally owned, and ready for long-term policy integration. This year's microgrant took an approach that allowed pre-learning, accompaniment through mentorship, and a post-grant showcase and learning event. All the four grantees received technical support from Wireless Planet, including training on IoT and sensor systems. Simultaneously, Kungu Labs led them through a training on human-centred design (HCD) at the very inception, ensuring the technology was co-designed with local communities to address real-world vulnerabilities like flooding and time poverty. Wireless Planet acted as the technical mentor for all the grantees. Their involvement went far beyond equipment deployment; they provided training on IoT systems and sensor technology, demystifying hardware for the community teams. Wireless Planet conducted on-site visits to each implementation site. This hands-on mentorship allowed them to provide personalised guidance, troubleshoot physical infrastructure challenges in real time, and tailor technical solutions to the unique geography and needs of each community. By meeting the grantees where they were, Wireless Planet turned intimidating technical hurdles into manageable steps, proving that for community-centred projects to thrive, they must be supported by a bridge between grassroots wisdom and expert engineering. Wireless Planet led a technical capacity-building session focused on leveraging the Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence for climate resilience and environmental justice. Photo: Wireless Planet By working with technical experts like Wireless Planet and design mentors at Kungu Labs, these grantees proved that climate justice is inherently linked to how we build our digital infrastructure.Blueprint for community-centred connectivity and environmental resilienceThroughout these projects, we learned that technology is only as effective as the community it serves. We learned that climate justice from a CCCI lens provides hyperlocal data that national systems often overlook. Digital Rurals showed us that sensors coupled with citizen science can provide information needed to save property and lives. We also learned that connectivity is a vital tool for gender equity; by monitoring water temperatures, Bahari CBO demonstrated that data can directly combat the time tax that climate change imposes on women. Kungu Labs’ human-centred approach is built on two core pillars: storytelling and ethnography, and participatory design. Photo: Kungu Labs True digital sovereignty means ensuring technology amplifies, rather than replaces, Indigenous knowledge. By hosting content in Kimeru, Athi CN proved that language and culture are central to technical adoption. Perhaps most importantly, we learned that the most innovative technology is useless if it is not designed with the user in mind. Through the HCD approach led by Kungu Labs, the grantees factored in the trap of digital exclusion at the very onset of their plans, ensuring that their systems worked for everyone, regardless of their level of digital literacy.Finally, these projects taught us the power of bankable data. By presenting their findings to government bodies like the Ministry of Fish and Blue Economy and signing MoUs with the Kenya Meteorological Department, these community-led initiatives transitioned from experiments to legitimate, trusted sources of truth that can now influence national infrastructure funding and climate insurance policies.The road aheadThis initiative has provided a blueprint for how community-centred connectivity can serve as the backbone for environmental resilience. But this is just the beginning. The success of these microgrants has already sparked interest in further cycles, with plans to expand the scope and connect these local networks into a broader use of the date to influence climate action. As these organisations continue to refine their models, they are proving that communities have the knowledge and context, and understand the urgency needed to build the foundation for a more resilient, equitable future.Rebecca Ryakitimbo is a feminist technologist and researcher working at the intersection of AI, gender justice and digital equity. She supports feminist tech spaces such as the African Women School of AI, and curates the Gendering AI conference. As part of the Local Networks (LocNet) initiative, she supports community-centred connectivity initiatives by facilitating communities of practice and researching community-centred connectivity and local services for equitable, locally led digital ecosystems.
