How is climate action financed in Kenya?

The constitution of Kenya provides the framework upon which financing climate action is anchored. The Climate Change Act, 2016 requires that deliberate Climate Change considerations is made to ensure mainstreaming in all government plans, policies and programmes, resulting into inbuilt public climate financing of all sectors of the economy. The Climate Change Act, 2016 further created a Climate Change Fund to facilitate climate action. The National Treasury is the National Designated Authority (NDA) for climate finance in Kenya, and oversees the implementing entities for various climate finance streams, as well as tracking of the financed on-budget and off-budget activities. Some county governments have already instituted county climate change funds to facilitate and accelerate climate action at the subnational level.

Kenya has several Accredited Entities, which include the public institutions such as National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) which is the NIE for both the Green Climate Fund (GCF) small category projects, as well as the Adaptation Fund (AF). Multinational Organisations in Kenya like Acumen Fund, KfW for large category GCF projects; UN bodies like the UNEP, UNDP, UNFAO, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for multinational projects. Private entities such as the Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) are also seeking accreditation to enable the private sector leverage on climate funding opportunities.

Kenyan actors interested in accessing climate finances are encouraged to make use of the various implementing entities and take advantage of the opportunities from both local and international sources by submitting competitive innovative proposals. Application templates and procedures are available online.