Kenya has unveiled two landmark blueprints aimed at reshaping its climate resilience and green growth agenda: the National Agroforestry Strategy (2025–2035) and the Kenya Landscape and Ecosystem Restoration Monitoring Framework (2025).
The launch, presided over by Environment, Climate Change and Forestry Cabinet Secretary Deborah Mlongo Barasa, marks a significant step in the country’s efforts to restore ecosystems, boost tree cover, and unlock green jobs under the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA).
Calling the moment “a proclamation of vision and a covenant with future generations of green abundance, resilience, and prosperity,” Dr. Barasa urged stakeholders across government, private sector, and civil society to translate the strategies into tangible results.
For centuries, trees have been central to Kenya’s farming systems—from mango trees feeding families to acacias sustaining livestock in drylands.
The new National Agroforestry Strategy seeks to mainstream these practices into both national and county development plans. Anchored on six pillars—policy reforms, financing, research, value chains, climate action, and social inclusion—the strategy sets ambitious targets, including:
- Establishing five million acres of woodlots in drylands.
- Modernizing the charcoal value chain and supporting youth-led briquette enterprises.
- Incentivizing farmers to integrate trees into agriculture.
- Achieving 30% tree cover by 2032.
In addition to environmental goals, the government expects the strategy to improve household nutrition and create thousands of green jobs.
Dr. Barasa credited development partners such as FAO, JICA, CIFOR-ICRAF, Vi Agroforestry, PELUM Kenya, AWAK, FFSPAK, the Council of Governors, and farmer associations for shaping the strategy. “A strategy on paper does not plant a tree,” she emphasized. “The task before us is to breathe life into these words.”
Alongside it, the ministry unveiled the Kenya Landscape and Ecosystem Restoration Monitoring Framework (2025)—a tool to measure progress towards the national pledge of restoring 10.6 million hectares of degraded land by 2032.
The framework sets clear indicators, integrates gender and social inclusion, and covers both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. It also aligns local actions with global commitments under the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
Acknowledging the support of UK PACT, CIFOR-ICRAF, FAO, WRI, KEFRI, WWF, county governments and the Council of Governors, Dr. Barasa said the framework is “not just technical, but inclusive, evidence-based, and ready for use.”
She called on ministries, county governments, the private sector, NGOs, and grassroots groups to adopt the framework and report progress consistently. “Restoration is not the work of government alone—it is a whole-of-society effort,” she said.
The event was also attended by Forestry Principal Secretary Gitonga Mugambi, Forest Development Secretary George Tarus, KEFRI CEO Dr. Jane Njuguna, British High Commission representative Robina Abuya, CIFOR-ICRAF COO Dr. Philip Osano, and JICA’s Michiko Nishikwa, among other development partners.