Recent years have seen unprecedented pressure from numerous water stakeholders with different interests in Lake Naivasha basin, the only freshwater lake in the Great Rift Valley of Kenya. The pressure on this water resource results in high competition over access to water source, unsustainable resources management practices, poor water quality, and emergence of conflicts between institutions and its users. Presently, there is a knowledge gap and paucity of information on water resources stakeholders’ interactions in Lake Naivasha basin. This study, therefore, analyses the ways resource stakeholders interact and play in the conflict dynamic, and ultimately propose a better water resource use and management approaches. Drawing on field assessments, individual interviews, focus group discussion, and secondary literature reviews, this paper illustrates how both local, national and multi-national stakeholders interact and contribute to water resources conflicts. Results suggest unclear county and national institutional structures, fragmented land use activities and ownership, a feeling of marginalization by the local population contributing to resource-based conflict within the lake basin. A comprehensive policy framework and enforcement of existing regulations will ensure there is sustainable water access, reduce conflicts and enhance sustainable water resource governance and use of the lake.

Kenya and Uganda are currently two of the fastest growing countries in the East African Community. The political leaderships’ prioritization of sociopolitical and economic development, combined with the wish for a closer integration into the world market, shifted the countries’ governance structures and agenda setting. Undertaken economic projects, including oil explorations, mining and gold extractions, flower farming and intense rice growing, put conservation areas at great risk and led to a decrease of the country’s wetland and forest cover. Accordingly, the impact of climate change on the vulnerability of countries is increasing. The paper critically investigates how particularly recent economic investments by national and international companies question the coherence between the institutional framework on climate policies, especially on a sub-national level of decision-making. Based on two field visits to the area, this paper raises the question of how the institutional frameworks shape climate governance processes in Kenya and Uganda. Looking at both political and climate governance structures from a pragmatic perspective, this paper concludes that the insufficient implementation of existing governance structures hampers the better integration of climate policies. National actors do not consider climate financing as an important issue which results in the fragmentation and undermining of climate policy processes.

The implementation of the European Water Framework Directive entails additional costs in the areas of management, monitoring and water quality. As a first estimate, an attempt is made to assess the effects of implementation on the development of costs in a sub-basin, taking the Wupperverband as an example. The work and measures required are presented and the costs are assessed. On this basis, a cost estimate for the maximum time required for the implementation of the WFD is made. This takes into account all the relevant tasks in the area of the association with respect to rivers.

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