Climate and livestock policy coherence analysis in Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda

Laurie Ashley, 'Climate and livestock policy coherence analysis in Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda', CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, 2019

Livestock in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Uganda play an important role in food security, livelihoods, income, and gross domestic product (GDP). Livestock sector growth in response to growing demand for animal-sourced food requires policy guidance to avoid increasing livestock sector exposure to climate risks and increasing sector greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Guided by the Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development Framework, this analysis examines 40 climate, agriculture, livestock, development, land, and environment policies across the three countries for strength and coherence in addressing livestock sector adaptation and mitigation. The policy context is dynamic with numerous policies developed since 2015 particularly in the climate and development policy areas but also for livestock, agriculture, and land. Countries are clearly working to integrate livestock climate change strategies into climate and other policy areas, although at times with limited detail and coherence. More recent policies often provide the most comprehensive approaches and detailed strategies and post-2015 policies are largely aligned with the SDGs with some exceptions. Development partners, including bilateral, multilateral, research, and private sector organizations often play key roles in technical and financial support for policy development related to livestock sector adaptation and mitigation. In each country, there are examples of strong policy guidance for livestock sector adaptation. Kenya in particular has strong policy coherence around livestock adaptation strategies across policy areas. In Ethiopia, there is policy coherence for livestock adaptation in development policy and more recent climate policy but a lack of adaptation consideration in livestock, agriculture, land, and environment policies. In Uganda, a sub-set of climate policies provide strategies for livestock adaptation, however, other policy areas are weak on this integration. In terms of mitigation in the livestock sector, examples of robust strategies are more limited. Comprehensive mitigation strategies and sufficient consideration of adaptation-mitigation cobenefits remain a gap in many policies across countries and policy areas. Kenyan policies do consistently call for finding adaptation-mitigation synergies but provide little detailed guidance. Ethiopia has the most policy coherence for livestock sector mitigation although this is mainly limited to climate and development policies and one livestock policy