Kenya has built one of the most robust climate legal frameworks on the continent. But turning those laws into action on the ground is a different challenge entirely, and the gap is getting wider.
That was the warning from Senator Mohamed Faki, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Lands, Environment and Natural Resources, speaking at the African Parliaments for Climate Action forum.
"We have some implementation and governance challenges, including slow and linear implementation," Faki said, adding that the gap between policy ambition and practical delivery is especially visible in fast-growing urban centres and climate-vulnerable countries.
Studies back him up. Research has consistently found that Kenya's strong climate laws frequently fail to translate into effective action, held back by weak coordination, limited funding and enforcement problems at both the national and county level.
A big part of the problem is institutional. Climate responsibilities in Kenya are spread across multiple agencies and ministries, including Energy, Agriculture and Livestock, Water, Planning and Finance, as well as bodies like the National Climate Council, the Climate Change Directorate and the National Environment Management Authority (Nema). In theory, these institutions are supposed to coordinate. In practice, they often do not. "They sometimes run in silence," Faki said, "and therefore it is not easy to get the desired results."
The overlapping mandates create confusion over who is responsible for what, slowing down decisions and leaving communities waiting for action that may never arrive.
Even where the political will exists, financing has been a persistent bottleneck. Faki pointed specifically to the Financing Locally-Led Climate Action programme, known as FLLoCa, which is backed by roughly Sh38 billion ($295 million) from the World Bank and the government, and is being implemented across all 47 counties.
The programme is designed to put climate resources directly in the hands of county governments. But delays in passing the necessary legislation and actually disbursing the funds have slowed everything down.
"This creates capacity and resource constraints in implementation," Faki said.
Julius Barno, a social safeguards specialist at FLLoCa, said the programme has systems in place to manage accountability. Counties operate under a results-based financing model, meaning funds are only released after verified performance indicators are met.
A grievance mechanism allows communities to raise complaints from the local level upward, and counties have already handled more than 3,200 grievances covering everything from planning concerns to contractor performance.
"Any grievances related to corruption or integrity are forwarded to EACC," Barno said. But accountability systems do not help much if the money itself is not flowing.
Dandora and the enforcement problem
Nowhere is the gap between law and reality more visible than at the Dandora dumpsite in Nairobi. Open burning at the site releases toxic smoke into surrounding neighbourhoods, making it one of the city's worst public health hazards. It is also illegal.
According to Kenya's recently released State of the Climate 2025 report, Dandora Phase Four recorded the highest annual average air pollution level in Nairobi at 30.5 microgrammes per cubic metre. Even the lowest-recorded site, Gigiri, came in at 13.4 microgrammes, nearly three times above WHO limits.
Faki was blunt about why this continues.
Faki was careful not to dismiss what Kenya has built. The country's constitution, through Articles 42 and 69, guarantees the right to a clean and healthy environment.
The Climate Change Act of 2016 created the governance architecture, including a National Climate Change Action Plan that translates Kenya's climate commitments into five-year implementation cycles covering mitigation, adaptation, disaster risk and capacity building.
"We have some of the strongest frameworks on the continent," Faki acknowledged. The challenge is making them mean something on the ground.
He also pointed to data gaps that undermine planning, including an absence of reliable emissions data from livestock, a significant blind spot for an agricultural country.
Parliament, Faki argued, has a critical role to play through legislation, budget oversight and public accountability. But it too faces funding and institutional constraints that limit what it can deliver.
