Farmers to benefit from FAO's Sh6.5 billion climate resilience programme
FAO says the project will focus on six key agricultural value chains: Dairy, poultry, coffee, tea, fruit trees, and African leafy vegetables.
Climate disaster-prone communities in the country are set to benefit from a Sh6.5 billion green project funding from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Green Climate Fund (GCF).
The newly approved initiative, valued at $50 million (Sh6.5 billion), aims to strengthen climate resilience and promote sustainable development in Kenya's most vulnerable regions.
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Specifically targeting the Lake Region Economic Bloc, the funding will have a special focus on women, who are often disproportionately impacted by environmental disasters.
"This densely populated region is highly dependent on agriculture, but climate change impacts such as increasing temperatures, unpredictable rainfall and floods threaten food security and livelihoods," FAO said in a statement.
The project is estimated to provide over 143,000 farmers with training and support to adopt climate-smart technologies and practices, strengthening their resilience to climate change and increasing their household incomes.
It also seeks to improve access to markets and finance, promote sustainable land management practices across 30,000 hectares and create up to 3,000 jobs.
FAO says the project will focus on six key agricultural value chains: Dairy, poultry, coffee, tea, fruit trees, and African leafy vegetables.
Commenting on the initiative, National Treasury CS John Mbadi said the Kenyan government is strongly committed to addressing climate change impacts and implementing ambitious policies and measures to achieve its nationally determined contribution goals as outlined in the Botton-Up-Economic Agenda (BETA).
"The Kenyan government greatly appreciates FAO Kenya's crucial support in building climate resilience within the agricultural sector through this GCF program, and pledges its full support and commitment in its implementation," Mbadi said.
On his part, Kaveh Zahedi, Director of the FAO Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment, said the landmark decision underscores the strength of FAO's partnership with GCF and their role in accelerating countries' access to climate finance.
"Together we can continue scaling up solutions to simultaneously transform agrifood systems and achieve global climate mitigation and adaptation goals," Zahedi said.
Since becoming partners in 2016, FAO and the GCF have been scaling up climate investments in high-impact projects that make the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors more efficient, inclusive, sustainable and resilient to climate change.
Notably, the FAO-GCF partnership supports over 50 million family farmers in 91 countries, including Kenya.
With the newly approved grants, the portfolio now exceeds $1.5 billion (Sh194.4 billion).
The funding announcement was made this week at the 41st GCF Board meeting, which took place in Songdo, Incheon, Republic of Korea, from February 17 to 20.
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