Carbon Credits for Conservation Farming: FELD Catalyst Hosts Dialogue with Pioneering Kenyan Farmers, United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network
Carbon markets have been, and continue to be, a hotly debated issue, including in Africa since the first Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi in September 2023. For some, they hold tremendous opportunities and potential for mobilizing desperately needed funding to drive development and societal transformation; for others they represent a road to nowhere, a pseudo-solution that benefits wealthy polluters in the global North rather than local or global climate/development agendas.
In June 2024, on the eve of the latest annual African Development Bank meeting in Nairobi, the FELD Catalyst team saw an opportunity to engage our local partners around their existing experience with carbon markets, and to link this knowledge with the broader debate on climate and development financing, including for the adaptation of agriculture systems and community development in Kenya, and beyond.
Alongside partners at TIST (The International Small Group and Tree Planting Program), and WRI Africa, FELD convened an informal roundtable dialogue discussion in Nairobi. More than 130 thousand Kenyan TIST farmers from nearby rural counties of Meru, Kirinyaga and Machakos were brought together for an afternoon of lively discussions with curious experts and researchers from the Greenbelt Movement, CIFOR-ICRAF, SDSN Kenya, FOLU Kenya and the Kenya National Farmers Federation (KENAFF) alongside the AfDB session downtown.
Drawing from the deep experience of TIST farmers, the participants explored lessons and perspectives on carbon market regimes, practice and potential. The farmers’ practical insights and concrete concerns over latest legislative and political initiatives in Kenya and Africa more broadly triggered lively discussions.
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