Mainstreaming Climate Action Agenda Through Green Strategies Within State Corporations’ Strategic Plans in Kenya

Abstract

Strategic planning is how organizations define their approaches and make decisions on allocation of resources to realize their strategic goals and hence their vision. In the Kenyan public sector, strategic plans must be aligned to the Constitution of Kenya 2010, Kenya Vision 2030, the Sustainable Development Goals, Medium Term Expenditure Framework III and relevant statutes. In the climate action agenda, the Strategic Plans must be aligned to SDG No. 13 (13.2, 13.3 and 13B), which lay emphasis of incorporating climate change measures in policy, strategy and planning. Like similar regional and global agencies, the Kenyan State Corporations are core in supporting the country’s climate action development agenda and hence the need to set strategies for climate action. However, a study of the existing strategic plans depicts a general inaction by the State Corporations to clearly highlight and mainstream climate change as anticipated in the global, regional and national development agenda. This paper, therefore, seeks to assess the extent to which the State Corporations have incorporated the climate action agenda through a green strategy. Using desk research, information is based on thematic grouping and analysis is sought, analysed and compared to knowledge on the influence of these variables in the mainstreaming of the climate agenda in strategic plans. A sample of twenty (20) Kenyan State Corporations is conveniently drawn from the list of 250 State Corporations whose Strategic Plans are available on the website and data derived from analysis of their key results areas and strategic objectives of their respective strategic plans and inference drawn. The findings indicate that most State Corporations do not mainstream climate action change through green strategies within their strategic plans, have limited budget for the climate change agenda, and experience organizational inertia on this agenda. Appropriate change communication strategies on the climate agenda, resource prioritization and removing organizational inertia to mainstream climate action are proposed.