SOAS Centre for Sustainable Finance Delivers Capacity Building on the Economics and Finance of Climate Change Adaptation for Kenyan Finance Ministry
The Resilience and Adaptation Mainstreaming Program (RAMP) convened its second practitioner training course on the economics and finance of climate change adaptation in collaboration with faculty from the University of Nairobi, Kenya.
Naivasha, 27 September 2024 – Held in Naivasha from 24 to 27 September, the foundations course brought together a diverse group of 35 participants for four days of intensive learning and exchange on a broad range of topics, including issues such as the macrocriticality of climate change, macro modelling and data challenges, climate-sensitive budgeting and budget tagging, and adaptation finance. The course was tailored to the needs of officials from the National Treasury of Kenya, the State Department of Economic Planning and Kenya’s National Bureau of Statistics.
Dr Harald Heubaum and Dr Jonathan Acosta Smith jointly delivered the sessions together with selected University of Nairobi faculty. This is a fundamental part of the RAMP approach: strengthening and supporting university partners to collectively build long-term capacity in central ministries responsible for financing, planning and implementing suitable macro-level adaptation actions. In addition, three senior officials from Kenya’s National Treasury and the State Department of Economic Planning contributed their expertise through interventions focused on the macroeconomic dimensions of climate impacts and modelling, climate-sensitive public investment management and climate budgeting, and Kenya’s experience with adaptation finance instruments.
This foundations course was the second in a series of practitioner training courses offered to civil servants in central ministries in key RAMP partner countries across sub-Saharan Africa. They are part of RAMP’s effort to help mainstream climate adaptation into the core capacities and operations of central ministries, supporting governments to align and effectively pursue their adaptation and development priorities, as well as access adaptation finance.
Dr Harald Heubaum, Deputy Academic Director of the RAMP University Network, pointed to the ongoing refinement of the RAMP offer to officials: “With this second foundations course, we were able to build on our experiences in Uganda and further improve our offer. Kenya has taken on a leading role, for example in climate budgeting, and we integrated this into our delivery and built onto it with support from the National Treasury.”
Professor Ulrich Volz, Director of the RAMP University Network, emphasised the continued strong demand for training across all of RAMP’s partner countries. “We look forward to delivering the next foundations courses in Rwanda and Ethiopia together with our local university partners while also developing a suite of more focused skills courses.”
The RAMP University Network is a key part of the Resilience Adaptation Mainstreaming Program (RAMP), which was conceived and established jointly by the World Resources Institute and the SOAS Centre for Sustainable Finance. The objective of RAMP is to accelerate climate adaptation in developing countries by building capacity in ministries of finance, planning and economics, to understand, plan for, and finance climate adaptation actions.
