Helping Kenya and other countries achieve NDCs

The business-as-usual (BAU) scenario of 143 megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2-eq) is a model for Kenya’s future greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions if there is no policy intervention or investment in renewable energy. The BAU scenario assumes that current energy demand patterns continue without significant changes.

Every 2 years Kenya needs to report on how the country is progressing in meeting the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC). “Kenya’s goal is to abate GHG emissions by 32% by 2040 relative to the BAU scenario of 143 MtCO2,” said Michael Okumu, Deputy Director in charge of Negotiations in the Ministry of Agriculture at a workshop hosted by the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) in Nairobi Kenya from 16-17 May 2024. It focused on how to navigate the Food Forward NDC tool. Participants at the workshop also provided feedback on how to improve the policy implementation strategies.

WWF and Climate Focus created a tool to support the implementation of the NDC goals in agriculture and food systems transformation. The Food Forward NDC tool helps country stakeholders identify specific target areas and strategies to build policies to meet the NDCs, with the end goals of climate change mitigation, adaptation and sustainable development benefits. The tool is broken up into five intervention areas with multiple policy options explaining specific policy options with concrete measurements to implement.

The workshop brought together participants from the German Development Cooperation (GIZ), Biovision Foundation, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the CGIAR, Kenya’s Council of Governors, University of Nairobi and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Kenya’s ministries of Trade,  and Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Netherlands Development Organization (SNV), Water Resources Institute, and WWF.

Participants split up into five different groups focusing on each intervention pathway to analyse and give feedback on ways to improve them. The EH&B Platform took part in the “food production” group alongside experts in fisheries, agroecology, forestry, and sustainable agriculture.

A key recommendation from the group was that Kenya should prioritize implementing nature-positive food production practices that use natural resources in regenerative, agroecological, non-depleting and non-destructive that are key to caring for soil health and reducing environmental degradation and emissions.

Moving forward, the workshop created a plan on how to approach the NDC process and what key actions each representative’s entity can take to meet NDC goals. Some key actions for the CGIAR to implement include:

• Conducting a stakeholder mapping of who needs to be involved in the NDC creation and operationalization processes.
• Analyse the policies in Kenya that the priority actions are anchored in.
• Tracking performance and results of the CGIAR’s actions to contribute to the implementation of the Kenyan NDC.
• Helping with a committee on creating workshops for integration of the priority policy options in the new NDC.
• Strengthening collaboration and partnership with WWF to support Kenya and other countries, not only for the operationalization of their NDC, but also the integration of food, land, and water systems into the Rio conventions (biodiversity, climate, and desertification/land degradation neutrality)