Several members of the Kenya Climate Smart Agriculture Multi-Stakeholder Platform (CSA MSP) also participated in the July event at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) campus in Nairobi to look at critical actions from the previous NCCAP II strategy from 2018 – 2022, focussing on specific activities designed to promote climate adaptation in the agriculture sector and reduce emissions from food production systems.

Lerenten Lelekoitien, the deputy director at the Climate Change Directorate in the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Forestry thanked ILRI for the support and hailed the review process as a learning opportunity to build on the previous lessons and best practices to improve on areas that need more attention, such as tracking the progress of adaptation and harmonisation of ongoing projects and activities.

“We are gradually building the baseline data on climate action in the agricultural sector that is critical in the monitoring and evaluation of adaptation for better reporting of the achievements of the set targets.” 

Lerenten Lelekoitien

The participants—drawn from across ministries and the research community—developed a list of priorities that will help the country meet its climate action commitments.

These include increasing access to climate-related resilience and safety net programmes and improving crop and livestock productivity through the implementation of climate-smart agriculture interventions.

Speaking to the growing collaboration between different government ministries, departments, and the research community in addressing climate change issues in Kenya, the head of the Climate Change Unit in the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, Veronica Ndetu, said the collaborations have given new insights on how to integrate different aspects beyond such as trade, gender and social inclusion.

“The support from partners such as ILRI has been critical in assisting us to collate achievements of the agricultural sector as part of the NCCAP II and to set the targets for NCCAP III.” 

Veronica Ndetu

This workshop comes just in time for the team developing the NCCAP III to incorporate the agriculture sector inputs into the document planned to be launched at the upcoming Africa Climate Summit and African Climate Week in early September. 

According to Laura Cramer, ILRI policy engagement specialist and policy theme leader for the Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) project, there is a need for regular science policy engagements such as these to continuously review national priorities on climate action.

“Long-term partnership with the Climate Change Unit in the Ministry of Agriculture gives us a chance to support the agriculture sector in Kenya to come together and feed into this critical government agenda.” 

Laura Cramer

ILRI is one research centre in the global research partnership for agriculture and food security collectively called CGIAR, the largest of its kind in the world. ILRI and other CGIAR research centres have engaged the Government of Kenya in many ways to support the development of robust policies, strategies and action plans that address how the agriculture sector will cope with the changing climate.

These collaborations provide a platform for knowledge exchange that allows CGIAR science to inform policymaking and help CGIAR centres understand how to shape their research agendas to address the needs of meet policymakers effectively.

The meeting was supported by several CGIAR initiatives and programs, including the Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) program, the Livestock & Climate initiative, the Climate Resilience initiative, and Low Emissions Food Systems Development initiative that all provided inputs into the process and resources to facilitate the workshop.

Authors

David Ngome, Communications Lead, AICCRA Kenya Cluster

Laura Cramer, Policy Engagement Specialist at ILRI and Policy Theme Leader for AICCRA