The Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) has been leading a consortium of partners to implement a project supporting ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) in the Ewaso Ng’iro North Catchment Area (ENNCA). The ENNEbA project, funded by the German Government through the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety, and Consumer Protection (BMUV), aims to ensure that people, animals, and ecosystems in the Ewaso Ng’iro North Catchment Area have access to sufficient water and energy, experience improved food security, and build resilience to climate change impacts, all while advancing toward a low-carbon green economy.
The project brings together key stakeholders, including the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA), Centre for Training and Integrated Research in ASAL Development (CETRAD), Merti Integrated Development Programme (MID-P) and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), to enhance climate resilience and sustainability in the region.
Located in northern Kenya, ENNCA spans ten counties and is home to approximately four million people. The ongoing project is being implemented in five of these counties – Laikipia, Isiolo, Samburu, Meru, and Nyeri – within a region experiencing rapid development and transitions in agriculture, energy systems, water, and land use. Key infrastructure initiatives, including the construction of a mega dam along the Ewaso Ng’iro River, the Isiolo City resort, and the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia-Transport (LAPSSET) Corridor project, align with Kenya’s Vision 2030 strategy, which seeks to transform the country into a newly industrialised, middle-income nation that provides a high quality of life for all citizens.
The competition for water, land, biomass, and energy resources is expected to intensify as population growth accelerates. Additional pressures will arise from the expansion of upstream commercial agriculture, rapid urbanisation, and the impacts of climate variability and change – particularly droughts and floods. These combined factors will drive higher rates of water abstraction for irrigation, reducing availability for downstream users, especially during dry seasons. Moreover, they will contribute to land degradation, ecosystem loss, and significant threats to water, food, and energy security.
Kenya acknowledges the significant risks these challenges pose to its Vision 2030 strategy and emphasises the need to integrate climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into its development agenda. To this end, the country is implementing key interventions, including the National Adaptation Plan (NAP), Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), Long Term Low Emission Strategy (LTS), National Climate Change Action Plan (NCCAP), among others, to enhance climate change resilience and sustainability. These strategic and policy interventions are anchored within a legal framework – the Climate Change Act, 2016.
Climate finance remains a critical enabler of Kenya’s adaptation ambitions under the Enhanced Nationally
Determined Contributions and the National Climate Change Action Plan (NCCAP). However, the policy and
institutional landscape governing climate finance in Kenya continues to exhibit fragmentation, underutilisation
of innovative instruments, and limited localisation of finance flows. In particular, the integration of Nature-based
Solutions (NbS) and Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) into national financing strategies remains nascent,
despite their prominence in global adaptation frameworks such as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity
Framework and the UNFCCC’s Global Goal on Adaptation.
Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA), a key approach to strengthening climate resilience and promoting sustainable development, is central to the objectives of the present project and plays a crucial role in Kenya’s broader climate change adaptation strategy. By incorporating EbA with nexus approaches, this project aims to holistically address climate-related and environmental pressures within the energy-water-food nexus. This integrated strategy fosters adaptability, enhances ecological resilience and sustainability, and supports long-term socio-economic development, and is therefore aligned with the broad objective of Vision 2030.
This report summarises the findings from a sub-objective of the project, focusing on the integration of climate finance and ecosystem-based adaptation into the county-level climate change planning and implementation. The analysis is largely based on a review of key environmental and climate change regulatory and policy frameworks, as specified in the Terms of Reference, complemented by reports from teams responsible for implementing other components of the project. Specifically, the report examines the climate finance landscape across the five target counties (Laikipia, Isiolo, Samburu, Meru, and Nyeri), identifies key policy gaps, and provides recommendations to strengthen regulatory frameworks for sustainable development.
The report is structured into three sections: a review of the climate finance policy landscape across the five counties, focusing on the domestication of national policies, regulations, and guidelines; an assessment of policy gaps with corresponding recommendations; and an examination of the role of private sector actors and private finance in advancing Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA).