A pioneering collaboration in Kenya shows how a proactive approach can maximize the employment benefits of climate and nature finance
Kenya (ILO News) – Healthy ecosystems are central to Kenya’s economy, supporting key sectors such as agriculture, forestry, and fisheries. Together, these sectors generated 22.5% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employed approximately one-third of the workforce in 2024. Nature is also a major tourist draw, attracting 2.4 million international travelers in 2024 and 3.7 million visitors to national parks and game reserves.
Yet, Kenya’s natural assets face threats from climate change, land degradation, and shrinking tree cover. With nearly a million young people entering the labour market each year, Kenya needs robust, sustained growth – and the country is turning climate and biodiversity action into an engine for prosperity and job creation.
At the Centre of this shift is the National Environment Trust Fund (NETFUND), which is funding community-led projects nationwide as part of a strategy to restore millions of hectares of degraded landscapes, plant billions of new trees, and promote sustainable agriculture and natural resource management.
Those projects have already created thousands of local jobs, for example, in the Kakamega Forest area, where local workers are setting up protection measures for a conservation area. In February, Kenya’s ambitions received a boost with a major new source of support for nature-based solutions (NbS): $35.66 million from Climate Investment Funds’ (CIF’s) Nature, People, and Climate (NPC) programme, with more than $108 million in expected co-financing from the World Bank and the African Development Bank (AfDB).
CIF funding will support iconic wildlife and Indigenous Peoples and foster private sector investments, focusing on sustainable agriculture, agroforestry, and grazing systems in Lake Victoria South; and restoration of forests, wetlands, and rangelands in North Ewaso Ng’iro Basins. Through climate finance, or financing of activities aimed at mitigating or adapting to the impacts of climate change, our joint ambition is to advance climate goals, build natural capital, protect ecosystems, strengthen livelihoods that rely on nature, and create decent jobs.
Globally, NBS already employ 63 million people. Boosting annual nature investments to $542 billion could create 32 million additional jobs by 2030, with Africa alone adding over 6.5 million.
Kenya’s new CIF-supported investment plan represents a prime opportunity. A pioneering partnership between NETFUND, CIF, and the International Labour Organization (ILO), it is leading the way to ensure the plan creates well-paid, safe, and dignified jobs with lasting benefits, and that local people are well positioned to take these jobs – and thrive in them.
NBS jobs take many forms: from conservation workers who plant native species, remove invasive plants, build protective structures, and otherwise restore ecosystems; to park rangers who manage and maintain protected areas; to project managers, environmental engineers, and environmental scientists. Kenya’s NPC projects will also require extension workers specialized in regenerative agriculture.
Some tasks are inherently temporary, but benefits are much likelier to be sustained if local people can keep working in conservation and natural resource management in the long term, drawing on their job training as well as their own knowledge of the land and its ecosystems.
That is what Kenya’s collaboration with ILO and CIF aims to achieve. In August, we held our first joint training session on decent nature jobs, with staff from over a dozen national government agencies and from seven county governments. As we progress this work, we hope that Kenya’s pioneering efforts can be a model for other CIF partners, starting with NPC countries.
Globally, 55% of global GDP is dependent on natural systems. Across nearly all sectors, from food to power to tourism to technology, a clear business case links ecosystem services to economic growth. Decent jobs and human wellbeing must also be front and centre in this equation. We stand ready to meet this challenge.
This article was co-authored by Samson Toniok, CEO of the National Environment Trust Fund (NETFUND), Government of Kenya; Maikel Lieuw-Kie-Song, a senior employment intensive specialist at the International Labour Organization (ILO) and co-author of the report “Decent Work in Nature-based Solutions 2024”; and Paul Hartman, Nature Lead at CIF
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Finance nature, hire millions: How to create decent jobs from climate finance, starting in Kenya
A pioneering collaboration in Kenya shows how a proactive approach can maximize the employment benefits of climate and nature finance
Kenya (ILO News) – Healthy ecosystems are central to Kenya’s economy, supporting key sectors such as agriculture, forestry, and fisheries. Together, these sectors generated 22.5% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employed approximately one-third of the workforce in 2024. Nature is also a major tourist draw, attracting 2.4 million international travelers in 2024 and 3.7 million visitors to national parks and game reserves.
Yet, Kenya’s natural assets face threats from climate change, land degradation, and shrinking tree cover. With nearly a million young people entering the labour market each year, Kenya needs robust, sustained growth – and the country is turning climate and biodiversity action into an engine for prosperity and job creation.
At the Centre of this shift is the National Environment Trust Fund (NETFUND), which is funding community-led projects nationwide as part of a strategy to restore millions of hectares of degraded landscapes, plant billions of new trees, and promote sustainable agriculture and natural resource management.
Those projects have already created thousands of local jobs, for example, in the Kakamega Forest area, where local workers are setting up protection measures for a conservation area. In February, Kenya’s ambitions received a boost with a major new source of support for nature-based solutions (NbS): $35.66 million from Climate Investment Funds’ (CIF’s) Nature, People, and Climate (NPC) programme, with more than $108 million in expected co-financing from the World Bank and the African Development Bank (AfDB).
CIF funding will support iconic wildlife and Indigenous Peoples and foster private sector investments, focusing on sustainable agriculture, agroforestry, and grazing systems in Lake Victoria South; and restoration of forests, wetlands, and rangelands in North Ewaso Ng’iro Basins. Through climate finance, or financing of activities aimed at mitigating or adapting to the impacts of climate change, our joint ambition is to advance climate goals, build natural capital, protect ecosystems, strengthen livelihoods that rely on nature, and create decent jobs.
Globally, NBS already employ 63 million people. Boosting annual nature investments to $542 billion could create 32 million additional jobs by 2030, with Africa alone adding over 6.5 million.
Kenya’s new CIF-supported investment plan represents a prime opportunity. A pioneering partnership between NETFUND, CIF, and the International Labour Organization (ILO), it is leading the way to ensure the plan creates well-paid, safe, and dignified jobs with lasting benefits, and that local people are well positioned to take these jobs – and thrive in them.
NBS jobs take many forms: from conservation workers who plant native species, remove invasive plants, build protective structures, and otherwise restore ecosystems; to park rangers who manage and maintain protected areas; to project managers, environmental engineers, and environmental scientists. Kenya’s NPC projects will also require extension workers specialized in regenerative agriculture.
Some tasks are inherently temporary, but benefits are much likelier to be sustained if local people can keep working in conservation and natural resource management in the long term, drawing on their job training as well as their own knowledge of the land and its ecosystems.
That is what Kenya’s collaboration with ILO and CIF aims to achieve. In August, we held our first joint training session on decent nature jobs, with staff from over a dozen national government agencies and from seven county governments. As we progress this work, we hope that Kenya’s pioneering efforts can be a model for other CIF partners, starting with NPC countries.
Globally, 55% of global GDP is dependent on natural systems. Across nearly all sectors, from food to power to tourism to technology, a clear business case links ecosystem services to economic growth. Decent jobs and human wellbeing must also be front and centre in this equation. We stand ready to meet this challenge.
This article was co-authored by Samson Toniok, CEO of the National Environment Trust Fund (NETFUND), Government of Kenya; Maikel Lieuw-Kie-Song, a senior employment intensive specialist at the International Labour Organization (ILO) and co-author of the report “Decent Work in Nature-based Solutions 2024”; and Paul Hartman, Nature Lead at CIF
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