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 mana...
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| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/939861592515485722/Kenya-Country-Environmental-Analysis http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33949 |
| Summary: | 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. |
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