Kenya receives $250 million from World Bank to fund climate smart agriculture
The World Bank has approved financing of a $250 million smart agriculture project in Kenya that will run for five years.
The project aims to increase agricultural productivity and build resilience to climate change risks in the targeted smallholder farming and pastoral communities in the country.
“In the event of an eligible crisis or emergency, the project will also provide immediate and effective response,” a statement from the World Bank says.
The facility will also finance the development of agro-weather forecasting and marketing information system and their dissemination tools through three sub-components.
Sixty percent of the financing will go towards rural services and infrastructure and water resource management.
Broken down, the project has five components. The first will include up-scaling climate smart agricultural practices, while the second component will involve the strengthening of climate-smart agricultural research and seed systems.
The third component is the supporting agro-weather, market, climate and advisory services.
“This component will see work such as improving agrometeorological forecasting and monitoring; using big data to develop a climate-smart, agro weather and market information system and advisories among others,” the statement reads.
The fourth component is the project coordination and management. According to World Bank, this component will finance activities related to national and county-level project coordination and management, including developing annual work plans and budgets.
