The COSME Legacy: Seeds of Change Along Kenya’s Coast
By Caroline Katana.
When a development project ends, communities are often left with the difficult question of what happens next.
For coastal women who have spent years farming seaweed and participating in conservation, the answer is beginning to take shape before the Conservation and Sustainable Management of Coastal and Marine Ecosystems (COSME) project closes.
Funded by Global Affairs Canada and implemented by Plan International, the project was launched in 2023 and expected to end March 2027 is to strengthen climate resilience through nature-based solutions while improving women’s economic empowerment and participation in decision-making in coastal communities in Kwale and Kilifi.
As implementation winds down, women farmers and community organisations said the project has left them with more than equipment.
They have gained skills, infrastructure, stronger community structures and new opportunities to turn conservation into livelihoods.
For Mima Said of Furaha Seaweed Farmers in Funzi, the change is visible in the sea and at home.
Through COSME, implemented by Plan International, her group received seaweed farming equipment and training, including improved planting techniques.
"Farmers were also provided with safety equipment such as life jackets and shoes to make it safer to reach their farms,"She affirmed.
But for Mima, one of the most significant changes came through the project's gender work.
Women who had traditionally been expected to cook, clean and shoulder most household responsibilities were joined by men in training under the Gender Justice Journey.
Mima says the training helped some men understand that household responsibilities could be shared, particularly when women were away farming.
“Men were also trained. They learned that it is not only a woman’s responsibility to cook and do everything in the house,” Mima said.
The gender sessions also opened conversations around gender-based violence, with women being taught where to seek help and the channels available to them when they face abuse.
For Mima, the training went beyond the seaweed farms.
It gave women confidence to speak, organise and defend themselves in spaces where they had previously remained silent.
She said women from different coastal communities were also brought together through the project, creating networks that allowed them to exchange experiences and support one another.
That confidence is part of what COSME was seeking to leave behind : women who are not only participating in livelihood activities, but are able to make decisions, speak for themselves and take leadership roles.
Speaking in Msambweni with beneficiaries Beryl Oduor, who oversees COSME activities for Plan International in Kwale and Kilifi, said the project deliberately placed women at the centre while ensuring that men, youth and older members of the community were also involved.
She said the project’s gender approach was meant to change how families and communities respond to economic and climate pressures, rather than simply provide women with resources.
Through the Gender Justice Journey, men and women were encouraged to plan together, share responsibilities and make decisions jointly, with the broader goal of strengthening household resilience.
But the sustainability of COSME goes beyond the changes in household relationships.
Along the coast, the project has invested in the natural resources on which many of these communities depend.
Oduor said COSME supported the planting of about 160,000 trees, equivalent to roughly 55 football pitches.
The restoration involved women as well as young people and older members of the community.
Importantly, the trees were not simply planted as a project activity. The seedlings were bought from community groups, putting money into local hands while creating an economic reason for communities to participate in conservation.
For Oduor, that connection between livelihoods and conservation is critical because communities are more likely to protect natural resources when conservation also supports their economic wellbeing.
Yet she said the restoration journey is far from complete.
The 160,000 trees represent only about half of what the project had hoped to achieve, making the question of what happens after COSME even more important.
Oduor said communities cannot wait for another project to return before continuing the work.
Through Community Forest Associations and in collaboration with the Kenya Forest Service, communities are expected to continue planting, protecting and monitoring forests.
The project has also supported community structures and forest monitoring so that conservation can remain a local responsibility after Plan Internexits.
“The project is ending, but the journey has not ended,” is the message behind the approach.
The same thinking has been applied to seaweed farming, where the project has sought to move farmers from dependence on occasional support towards a functioning industry.
Seaweed farmers have received ropes, planting materials, safety equipment and training, while some groups have been supported with boats and solar drying equipment to improve production and post-harvest handling.
Rama Madzumba, chairman of Tumbe seaweed farming group and the Kwale County Seaweed Farmers Association, said the support has changed how farmers view the activity.
His group is among those that received farming equipment and a boat for deep-sea seaweed farming, while farmers have also been introduced to value addition.
Three groups from Tumbe, Kibuyuni and Changai have already combined their produce to sell 40 tonnes of seaweed to Indonesia, demonstrating the possibilities that emerge when farmers work collectively and connect production to markets.
Rama said farmers are also exploring products such as soap, shampoo, body oils, juice, chilli sauce, doughnuts and sea moss products as they seek to capture more value from what they produce.
“We do not expect to go backwards. It is now agribusiness, and we have to plant seaweed and increase production,” Rama said.
For Oduor, ensuring that this momentum survives the project is now a major priority.
She said seaweed activities will continue until December, even as the wider COSME implementation comes to an end, while structures are being put in place to keep the sector organised afterwards.
One of those structures is the Kwale Seaweed Association, which is expected to provide a platform through which farmers can continue coordinating production, accessing markets and addressing challenges collectively.
The association is also expected to help solve one of the persistent problems facing farmers: knowing where the available seaweed is and connecting it to buyers.
Oduor said COSME is working towards a system where farmers' production can be captured digitally rather than relying entirely on handwritten records.
Such a system would allow information on how much seaweed farmers have and where it is located to become more accessible to market actors.
The project is also supporting the development of an aggregation centre where seaweed can be brought together, properly handled and prepared for buyers.
The aim is to make it easier for farmers to move from producing seaweed individually to participating in a more organised value chain.
Plans for sustainability also extend to the seed that keeps the industry going.
Oduor said the project is planning an approximately eight-hectare seaweed nursery to preserve planting material and reduce the risk of weather shocks such as El Niño disrupting future production.
The association is also expected to have an office and basic working equipment so that its leadership can continue coordinating farmers after Plan International leaves.
For farmers, the idea is that the equipment and training should not become idle assets once the project ends.
The ropes, boats, dryers, knowledge, market connections and association are intended to form part of a system that farmers can manage and build on themselves.
That principle runs through COSME's conservation work as well.
Oduor said communities must continue working through their forest associations and with the Kenya Forest Service to protect the trees already planted and expand restoration efforts.
The project has therefore sought to leave behind not just restored sites, but community structures capable of carrying the responsibility forward.
For Pendo Lugogo , director of Kwale Women Focus Initiative, which worked with Plan International under COSME, sustainability also means ensuring that women have a voice in decisions affecting the resources and projects around them.
Her organisation used COSME support to strengthen evidence-based advocacy and help communities participate more meaningfully in public processes, including discussions on projects responding to climate change.
The work also examined women's representation in climate change committees in Lungalunga, Bado and Kikoneni ward, including the participation of people with disabilities.
Lugogo said women need the confidence and information to claim their space in such structures rather than remain observers when decisions about their communities are being made.
“Women can lead and women can enter these climate change committees,” she said.
That is perhaps the wider legacy COSME is seeking to build.
The project may have provided equipment, training, seedlings and other forms of support, but the longer-term test is whether communities can use those assets, skills and structures without depending on the project itself.
For seaweed farmers, sustainability means continuing to farm, improving production, finding markets and strengthening their association.
For conservation groups, it means protecting the trees already planted and continuing restoration through community structures.
For women, it means carrying forward the confidence and leadership skills gained through the project into decisions that shape their livelihoods and environment.
The funding cycle has an end date. The intention, however, is that the systems built around it will continue.
And along Kenya's coast, that is where the real measure of COSME's legacy will lie — in whether the skills remain useful, the equipment remains productive, the associations remain active, the forests remain protected and the women and communities involved can keep building on what they have started.
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