Strategic partnership to promote climate-smart agriculture in full gear in Kenya
Following the Kenya Climate-Smart Agriculture Multi-Stakeholder Platform (CSA-MSP) strategic plan launch on March 15, 2022, the AICCRA – Eastern and Southern Africa technical team convened a CSA-MSP Steering team committee to develop an annual work plan for 2022/2023.
AICCRA works to make climate information services and climate-smart agriculture more accessible to millions of smallholder farmers across Africa. Hence, this work plan was developed along with the CSA-MSP thematic working groups (TWGs).
The TWGs include:
- TWG-1 (knowledge sharing),
- TWG-2 (coordinating and reporting),
- TWG-3 (networking and collaboration),
- TWG-4 (policy development and implementation), and
- TWG-5 (social inclusivity)
Thematic working groups are based on the key strategic outcomes with complementing roles.
The role of TWG-1 includes enhancing knowledge sharing through data and information management frameworks, operationalization of County CSA-MSPs, enhancing dissemination and up-scaling of climate action, increasing membership of the CSA-MSP, and mainstreaming of youth in climate action in the agriculture sector.
TWG-2 focuses on coordinating data collection and processing, sharing and validating climate action at all levels, supporting collaboration and integration of sector stakeholders for adherence to established reporting systems on climate action, and supporting the attribution and recognition of stakeholder contribution to the sector and national climate action goals.
TWG-3 works to support collaborations across the national, county, and local level stakeholders to ensure synergy in the implementation of climate action. In addition, the working group's role includes supporting collaborations and linkages (and sharing of expertise) across platform membership and supporting MSP members to access private and public finance.
The role of TWG-4 includes supporting an enabling environment for climate action in policies, strategies, plans, guidelines, and regulations at national and sub-national levels, increasing actor engagement for evidence-based policy conversation on climate action in agriculture through multi-stakeholder dialogues, and recommending areas of policy interventions.
Finally, TWG-5 has its focuses on promoting and supporting indigenous community-led climate action programmes incorporating indigenous traditional knowledge and adaptive learning approaches, promoting and supporting community-led climate action that will reduce vulnerability and enhance adaptive capacity, and liaising with other TWGs to ensure inclusivity of IPs, women, youth, etc., in their activities.
Developing the work plan
The development of the annual work plan was guided by AICCRA Component 2, which focuses on partnerships for delivery. The participants involved in the process were from 14 member organizations and 2 independent members of the CSA-MSP.
These included:
Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT
African Conservation Tillage Network
Arid Lands Information Network
Centre for Minority Rights Development
International Livestock Research Institute
Joint Agricultural Sector Steering Committee
Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation
The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries, and Cooperatives
SNV-Netherlands Development Organisation
Promoting an inclusive framework
The establishment of the CSA-MSP in Kenya will promote an inclusive institutional framework for coordination and harmonization of CSA implementation.
The platform will enhance knowledge sharing, credibility in coordination and reporting processes, networking & collaboration, and policy development and implementation. It will also foster an enabling environment to realize CSA objectives with particular attention to social inclusion targeting those vulnerable to climate change impacts like women, youth, the poor, persons with disabilities (PWDs), and marginalized communities.
The CSA-MSP platform embraces all other approaches and concepts used by various stakeholders to promote climate-resilient agricultural technologies, practices, and innovations in the country.
Climate-oriented MSPs have been attempting to promote a more holistic approach to these challenges through processes that facilitate dialogue among stakeholders for optimal outcomes—influencing policy reform to implement climate action in the agriculture sector.
The Strategic Plan
The Strategic Plan 2022-2026 and the accompanying work plan 2022/2023 will be reference documents to guide the MSP members, the Steering Committee, and the TWGs to gauge whether the MSP is moving in the right direction in delivering its objectives.
A science-policy dialogue conference is proposed in mid-2022 as an outcome of the planning process. TWG-4 will play a critical role in this science-policy dialogue event.
The main objective of the proposed science-policy dialogue conference is to facilitate a detailed discussion on implementable solutions for identified gaps and barriers with all relevant stakeholders to unlock scaling.
Secondly, the conference will explore avenues to align technological opportunities with national policies and food security objectives and with country CSA adaptation and mitigation strategies (including NDC and NAPs) to increase national ownership. Through the conference, stakeholders will address the main barriers to adopting climate-smart technologies and approaches by farmers and agribusinesses.
Priority issues to be considered will include but are not limited to good quality germplasm, soil fertility management, climate and weather information, mechanization services, bundled services, digital platforms, and climate finance, among others. The main aim will be to identify action points that can be presented to relevant national-level decision-makers for policy consideration.
The Kenya CSA-MSP and the policy engagement partners will involve all stakeholders through a two-way dialogue between evidence generators, policymakers, and implementors to ensure the issues are relevant and establish communication lines with concerned parties.
Authors
AICCRA Eastern and Southern Africa team:
John Recha, Scientist
Joab Osumba, Research Officer
Maren Radeny, Science Officer
Dawit Solomon, Program Leader
Brook Makonnen, Communications Specialist
Tracy Kawira, Intern