Key Messages.
1. Advancing a Just Transition in Kenya requires respecting national sovereignty while leveraging global experience. International actors can add most value by enabling learning, financing, and coordination, rather than imposing models.
2. By aligning support with Kenya’s national priorities, strengthening institutions, and fostering peer learning across the Global South, international cooperation can help accelerate Just Transition implementation in a way that is both nationally owned and globally informed.
3. Kenya has tested multiple successful models in inclusive climate action including in adaptation, resilience, and disaster preparedness, but these efforts remain fragmented and limited in scale. The next phase of international cooperation should focus on scaling proven approaches, rather than introducing new pilots.
4. Climate finance in Kenya does not consistently integrate social, labour, and livelihood considerations. Rather than creating parallel systems, international partners can help embed Just Transition objectives within existing climate finance mechanisms and programmes, including national climate funds and multilateral channels such as the Green Climate Fund.
5. A major barrier to scaling Just Transition action is the limited availability of data on employment, livelihoods, and social outcomes of climate policies. Without credible, trackable evidence, it is difficult for Kenya to demonstrate results or unlock sustained financing.
6.International cooperation can help by supporting regional knowledge exchange. Establishing regional Just Transition knowledge hubs could support Kenya and other African countries to share lessons, promote decent work, and better integrate informal workers into transition pathways.
Kenya has emerged as a regional leader in climate action and green growth, bolstered by strong obligations to renewable energy, climate resilience and sustainable development. However, while the construct of Just Transition is increasingly recognised in the national conversation, its integration into Kenya’s legal and policy framework remains partial and/or unclear. The country’s constitution, national development plans and climate policies and strategies, among others, offer a solid foundation for a Just Transition through the principles of social justice, equity, public engagement and environmental protection. However, Just Transition is not clearly defined or operationalised in the policy and legal framework. Failure to explicitly integrate Just Transition in existing climate policy and legal framework and strategies, weak coordination between the national government and sub-nationals, limited technical capacity, inadequate data and weak monitoring and verification are some of the barriers to Just Transition in the country. Others include inadequate funding, instability in existing financing avenues and weak integration of the concept of Just Transition in the current academic and technical training programs.
Despite these challenges, Kenya offers important lessons and emerging best practices. The country’s leadership in the expansion of renewable energy and electricity access demonstrates the potential for green growth linked to inclusivity and employment creation. The Existing governance system that coordinates in sub-nationals and devolves planning structures provides an entry point for embedding Just Transition. Additionally, the existing stakeholder engagement arrangement provides an opportunity for all the citizenry to air their views on proposed policies or changes in existing legal and policy frameworks. Significant gaps remain in entrenching and operationalising Just Transition in policy and legal frameworks, especially in financing, strengthening institutional coordination, enhancing technical capacity in the national and sub-national governments and integrating the concept of Just Transition in the academic and technical training programs. These gaps present clear opportunities for international actors’ support. International actors could play a critical role in operationalising the concept of Just Transition in Kenya through the following approaches:
a. Providing technical capacity to integrate Just Transition explicitly in climate action legal and policy frameworks.
b. Providing technical support to develop data and monitoring systems related to Just Transition.
c. Development partners could require that Just Transition is explicitly embedded in climate actions they support financially.
d. Providing technical support to the integration of the construct of Just Transition into academic and technical training programs.
Combining this international support with strong domestic leadership can help ensure that Kenya’s transition to a low-carbon and climate-resilient economy is inclusive, equitable and socially sustainable
