Kenya - Country Environmental Analysis

The Kenya Country Environmental Analysis (CEA) presents recent findings and trends on key environmental challenges and opportunities. The CEA identifies a set of recommendations that are necessary to both strengthen the country’s environmental management capabilities and ensure that environmental issues are adequately incorporated into broader development initiatives and investments. The core of Kenya’s poverty and environmental problems lies at the nexus of population growth, inequality, and high dependence on natural resource–based incomes. A rapidly rising population increases the numbers of people seeking natural resource–based livelihood opportunities placing further pressures on already fragile ecosystems. Climate change is accelerating the impact of existing vulnerabilities to environmental shocks such as floods, droughts, and heatwaves. Kenya’s economy has always depended heavily on environmental goods and services. Kenya’s economic growth is intensifying, and it is crucial that environmentally sustainable approaches are part of this process. In addition, Kenya’s diverse regional landscapes create the necessity for versatile environmental regulatory policies which can be adapted to suit local environmental conditions, challenges, and opportunities. Kenya has a wide range of progressive environmental policies, but implementation remains a challenge. Implementationis often characterized by weak technical and managerial capacity, poor coordination, and inadequate funding. Political commitment does not always match the urgency of policy rhetoric. This is partly because the benefits to improved environmental management are often slow to mature and do not match short-term election cycles. Devolution has added to the challenge. While the responsibility for implementing environmental policies has moved to counties, there is not necessarily a parallel transfer of appropriate technical expertise. While institutional coordination remains weak, inadequate budget allocations and slow budgetary transfers are common. This is a problem for the county administrations and hampers the implementation of environmental (and other) policies and plans.