Kenya, like many of its peers in the East African Community, has demonstrated a resilient but uneven trajectory toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). According to 2024 SDG progress assessments, Kenya is on track or maintaining moderate progress on approximately 40 per cent of its SDG targets, while significant challenges persist in poverty eradication, reducing inequalities, and decent job creation. Although progress has been observed in areas such as digital transformation and climate action, high debt distress, global price shocks, and rising living costs continue to place pressure on food security and employment outcomes.
Kenya’s SDG progress has been significantly affected by the increasing frequency and intensity of climate-related shocks. The country recently emerged from its worst drought in over 40 years, which was followed by widespread flooding in early 2024, underscoring Kenya’s high vulnerability to climate variability and change.2 Agriculture remains the backbone of the Kenyan economy, contributing approximately 22.5% to GDP and employing over 70% of the rural population. However, climate risks pose a growing threat to the sector. The World Bank estimates that climate change could result in GDP losses of between 5 and 7 per cent by 2050 in the absence of scaled adaptation measures.
Further, Kenya’s agricultural transformation is slowed by a combination of structural, environmental and policy-related barriers, with climate change, land degradation, and weak infrastructure emerging as the most persistent obstacles. Many smallholders also lack access to modern tools and technology, mechanization, and digital platforms. Despite Kenya being home to a large share of Africa’s agri‑tech startups, adoption remains uneven, slowing transformation.
To address these challenges and drive inclusive growth, Kenya is aligning its national development priorities under Vision 2030 through the Fourth Medium Term Plan (MTP IV, 2023–2027). MTP IV identifies food and nutrition security, manufacturing, and the blue economy as key pillars of economic transformation. Central to this agenda is the Agricultural Sector Transformation and Growth Strategy (ASTGS), a 10-year national plan (2019-2029) which seeks to modernize agriculture, raise smallholder incomes, enhance climate resilience, and promote the adoption of science, technology, and innovation across agricultural value chains.
In this context, the Government of Kenya, through the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, is partnering with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) to promote Juncao technology under the project titled “Accelerating SDGs in Developing Countries: Promoting Juncao Technology for Resilient Food Systems, Poverty Eradication and Climate Adaptation.” This project is being implemented in partnership with the National Engineering Research Centre for Juncao Technology of the Fujian Agriculture of China. Juncao grass, a fast‑growing, high‑yield grass offers a strategic solution to some of these challenges as it thrives in semi‑arid and drought‑prone regions, produces large biomass even under harsh conditions, provides nutritious fodder for dairy and beef livestock and requires relatively low inputs compared to traditional pasture. In 2025, Kenyan policymakers, researchers and farmers have participated in the international study tour in China, and African regional training workshop in Rwanda.
