Earth4All: Kenya’s engagement strategy
The Club of Rome has engaged PEP to lead the Earth4All national-level engagement strategy in Kenya—the first country campaign in Africa—as part of its global campaign to advocate for governments to adopt policies for a sustainable planet.
The objective of the programme is to champion Earth4All messages and ensure they are in sync with national and sub-national policies and development priorities in Kenya.
Addressing an urgent need
Earth4All’s programme, which includes the results of new global modeling, indicates that falling well-being and rising social tensions heighten risk of regional societal collapses. It explores two scenarios to 2100:
- The Too Little Too Late scenario where we continue with the status quo (i.e., without making any changes to current global policies or actions), resulting in increasing inequality and social tensions; and
- The Giant Leap where climate change is stabilised, extreme poverty ends a generation earlier, social tension falls, and wellbeing rises by adopting the five turnarounds (eliminate poverty, reduce inequality, empower women, transform food systems, and overhaul energy systems).
Focus questions for PEP’s engagement in Kenya
- What are the implications of adopting either the 'Too Little Too Late' or 'The Giant Leap' scenarios for well-being, inequality and rising social tensions in the country?
- Can we find pathways to reboot our economic system to achieve prosperity for all within planetary limits in a single generation?
- What are the implications for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Agenda 2063 and beyond?
“To achieve this, we will work on the principles of understanding local circumstances, engaging with local partners, including 'unheard voices' and drawing on scientific expertise and citizen engagement.”
Prof. Jane Mariara, PEP’s Executive Director
At the Climate Activation Hub side event held during the Africa Climate Summit 2023
Four pillars for PEP’s national engagement in Kenya
They are to:
- Develop science-based policy propositions directed at national and sub-national governments, catalysing a national informal alliance, convening deliberative spaces, conducting research and analysis on what does Earth4All mean for Kenya, and developing scenario simulations and in-depth analysis.
- Facilitate citizen engagement that comprises building alliances, stakeholder groups and driving public engagement on future scenarios.
- Conduct advocacy work that fosters a shift towards a wellbeing economy (and away from focusing on GDP growth).
- Undertake outreach and public campaigns for a just and sustainable economic system.
Publications
In 2024, PEP co-authored the Earth4All: Kenya report in collaboration with the Kenya Institute of Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA), the Club of Rome and the Millennium Institute, as part of Earth4All’s national engagement strategy in Kenya.
The report uses analyses from system dynamic modelling and economic thinkers to show how different policies are likely to affect human wellbeing, societies and ecosystems. It looks at two scenarios, applying the Earth4All model to the Kenyan context. The Giant Leap scenario explores the five extraordinary turnarounds that could significantly improve the lives and livelihoods of Kenyan citizens. The alternative scenario, Too Little, Too Late, shows that poverty in Kenya will remain until late in this century.
To achieve the pace and scale of change required for meaningful progress by 2050, the report identifies seven policy levers that need to be implemented simultaneously:
- Restructuring of global financial debt (as advocated by Earth4All on a global scale).
- Improving debt management in Kenya, improving transparency, introducing debt ceiling regulations and having an independent body for oversight of the debt portfolio.
- Ensuring equal access to employment opportunities for all.
- Increasing investment in education and increasing awareness and interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) among girls from an early age.
- Providing financial support for small-scale irrigation schemes to complement large-scale, capital-intensive schemes, and investing in improving soil and seed quality.
- Providing input finance and intensive agricultural extension to elevate two million impoverished farmers to surplus producers.
- Adjusting energy tariffs and building awareness of clean cooking energy sources to promote their use.
Find out more about the Earth4All: Kenya report and its launch in June, 2024.
Supported by
Earth4All is a vibrant collective of leading economic thinkers, scientists and advocates, convened by The Club of Rome, the BI Norwegian Business School, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the Stockholm Resilience Centre. Earth4All builds on the legacies of The Limits to Growth and the Planetary Boundaries frameworks.
