Climate and livestock policy coherence analysis in Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda
This working paper (PDF) by CCAFS-CGIAR examines 40 climate, agriculture, livestock, development, land, and environment policies across Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda for strength and coherence in addressing livestock sector adaptation and mitigation. Livestock in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Uganda play an important role in food security, livelihoods, income, and gross domestic product (GDP). Growth of the sector 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. The countries are clearly working to integrate livestock climate change strategies into climate and other policy areas, although at times with limited detail and coherence. 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. The key potential transboundary impact of these policies is related to livestock mobility and the spread of disease. Each country emphasises the need to control livestock disease, however, there is little consideration of how these disease control efforts could impact livestock mobility that is critical for climate resilience.