Direct Access to Climate Finance: How Kenya’s Counties are leading Local Adaptation

Climate Change

Kenya is setting a global example for how national and subnational governments can work together to mobilise and manage climate finance effectively.

With its 47 counties —ranging from 167,000 to over 4.4 million inhabitants, and with more than half above one million — Kenya has developed a robust, decentralised system that delivers resources directly to communities, while maintaining national oversight and strategic alignment. All counties are coordinated and represented through the Council of Governors Kenya (CoG Kenya), a Regions4 member, ensuring that subnational voices are embedded in the national framework.

Counties within the national climate framework

Kenya’s governance model ensures that counties are fully integrated into national planning. National strategies such as the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) provide long-term direction, while counties are mandated to design their own County Climate Change Action Plans (CCCAs). These county-level plans are developed through participatory climate risk assessments at the ward level, giving communities a direct say in investment priorities.

This arrangement creates a two-way flow of governance and finance: national institutions mobilise and channel resources, while counties adapt them to local realities and feed local priorities back into national strategies.

Strong vertical integration and inclusive climate governance

Kenya’s governance framework ensures that climate change decisions engage all levels of authority and society – from the highest political leadership to local communities

At the national level, the National Climate Change Council, chaired by the President, provides strategic leadership.

The Climate Change Directorate ensures technical coordination across ministries and sectors.

At the county level, County Climate Change Planning Committees oversee the development and execution of climate plans.

Ward Climate Change Committees ensure direct community involvement in planning and implementation.

This multi-level integration means that everyone has a role to play: communities shape priorities, counties drive implementation, and the national level provides resources and strategic guidance. This “whole-of-society” approach has been crucial to the success of Kenya’s decentralised climate finance model, making adaptation both locally grounded and nationally supported.

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Finance flows: based on results and rooted in local needs

The cornerstone of this system is the County Climate Change Fund (CCCF) — a mechanism legally institutionalised by each county through its own County Climate Change Act. The CCCF enables counties to receive, manage, and deploy climate finance based on community-defined priorities.

Thanks to the Financing Locally-Led Climate Action (FLLoCA) programme, this mechanism has been scaled up to all 47 counties. Supported by the World Bank and co-financed by the Governments of Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, and Kenya, FLLoCA channels adaptation finance through two instruments:

The County Readiness and Institutional Support Grant, which supports governance and planning structures

The County Climate Resilient Investment Grant, which funds project implementation at the local level

Counties access these funds through a results-based system, only after meeting specific performance criteria, such as establishing legal frameworks, creating climate planning units, and allocating a minimum percentage of their development budget to climate action.

Co-financing as a signal of subnational leadership

So far, USD 82 million has been disbursed to counties through FLLoCA. Importantly, counties themselves have contributed USD 24 million from their own budgets, with some allocating up to 4% of development spending to climate adaptation (well above the 1.5% minimum requirement). This co-financing demonstrates strong subnational leadership: external finance is being used not as a substitute, but as a lever to mobilise domestic public resources.

Kenya’s FLLoCA programme, anchored by a strong partnership between the national government and counties through CoG Kenya, shows that when vertical governance is strong and financing structures are clear, subnational governments can become powerful agents of climate resilience. The combination of national leadership, legally grounded local institutions, and shared financial responsibility creates a model of multilevel cooperation that delivers real results — and one that other countries may look to for scaling climate adaptation from the ground up.

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Direct Access to Climate Finance: How Kenya’s Counties are leading Local Adaptation

Kenya is setting a global example for how national and subnational governments can work together to mobilise and manage climate finance effectively.

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