- Home
- Aid by Location
- Kenya
Kenya
ORRAA Programme
Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs
The Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA) is a multi-sector alliance that aims to drive investment into coastal natural capital through the development of innovative finance solutions. These products will reduce vulnerability and build resilience in the most exposed and vulnerable coastal regions and communities. The UK has committed £13.9 million into ORRAA, delivered in two phases. A successful Phase 1 in 2021-22 provided £1.9m in grant funding, followed by Phase 2 from 2022-2026 with £12m committed in grant funding. The UK’s investment will address 2 challenges faced by coastal communities and the ocean environment: 1) Tackling the impacts of anthropogenic climate change and biodiversity loss. 2) Overcoming barriers that prevent finance flowing into nature-based solutions. The grant awarded to ORRAA will support their aims to drive at least $500 million of investment into coastal and ocean natural capital, and produce at least 50 new, innovative finance products, by 2030. This would positively impact the resilience of 250 million climate vulnerable people in coastal areas worldwide.
Land Degradation Neutrality Fund
Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs
The LDN Fund invests in projects which reduce or reverse land degradation and thereby contribute to ‘Land Degradation Neutrality’. The LDN Fund is co-promoted by the Global Mechanism of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and Mirova. It is a public-private partnership using public money to increase private sector investment in sustainable development. The fund invests in sustainable agriculture, forestry and other land uses globally. The Fund was launched at the UNCCD’s COP 13 in China in 2017.
Global Programme on Sustainability
Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs
The programme supports sustainable economic growth that is both long-lasting and resilient to climate-related stressors. It does this through the integration of natural capital into decision making by governments, the private sector and financial institutions. The inability to value natural capital can undermine long-term growth and critically, the livelihoods of the poorest people dependent on ecosystems for their livelihoods. This programme directly addresses this challenge by (i) investing in data and research on natural capital; (ii) assisting countries to integrate this analysis into government policy making; and (iii) integrating this data and analysis into financial sector decision making.
Darwin Initiative
Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs
The Darwin Initiative is the UK’s flagship international challenge fund for biodiversity conversation and poverty reduction, established at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. The Darwin Initiative is a grant scheme working on projects that aim to slow, halt, or reverse the rates of biodiversity loss and degradation, with associated reductions in multidimensional poverty. To date, the Darwin Initiative has awarded more than £195m to over 1,280 projects in 159 countries to enhance the capability and capacity of national and local stakeholders to deliver biodiversity conservation and multidimensional poverty reduction outcomes in low and middle-income countries. More information at https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/the-darwin-initiative. This page contains information about Rounds 27 onwards. For information about Rounds 1 to 26, please see the Darwin Initiative website -https://www.darwininitiative.org.uk/
Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund
Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs
Illegal wildlife trade (IWT) is a widespread and lucrative criminal activity causing major global environmental and social harm. The IWT has been estimated to be worth up to £17 billion a year. Nearly 6,000 different species of fauna and flora are impacted, with almost every country in the world playing a role in the illicit trade. The UK government is committed to tackling illegal trade of wildlife products and is a long-standing leader in efforts to eradicate the IWT. Defra manages the Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund, which is a competitive grants scheme with the objective of tackling IWT and, in doing so, contributing to sustainable development in developing countries. Projects funded under the Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund address one, or more, of the following themes: • Developing sustainable livelihoods to benefit people directly affected by IWT, • Strengthening law enforcement, • Ensuring effective legal frameworks, • Reducing demand for IWT products. By 2023 over £51 million has been committed to 157 projects since the Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund was established in 2013. This page contains information about Rounds 7 onwards. For information about Rounds 1 to 6, please see the IWTCF website -https://iwt.challengefund.org.uk/
Fleming Fund - Country and Regional Grants and Fellowships Programme
UK - Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC)
This is an Official Development Assistance (ODA) funded UKaid project from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC)’s Fleming Fund which helps to fight antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) where the burden of drug-resistant infection is greater. A management agent, Mott MacDonald, has been appointed to deliver: (1) Country grants across up to 25 LMICs; (2) Regional grants in West Africa, East and Southern Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia; (3) Global projects; and (4) A fellowships programme. These initiatives aim to improve laboratory capacity and diagnosis, data generation and use, and strengthen AMR surveillance systems. Through the country, regional and strategic grants, and the fellowships programme the Fleming Fund will: (1) Build laboratory capacity for diagnosis; (2) Collect data on drug resistance, drug quality, drug use and the burden of disease associated with AMR; (3) Enable the sharing of data relevant to AMR locally, regionally, and internationally; (4) Encourage the application of data to promote the rational use of antimicrobials; (5) Shape a sustainable system for AMR surveillance and data sharing; and (5) Increase national leadership in addressing AMR.
Core - International Collaboration Awards
DEPARTMENT FOR SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
International Collaboration Awards enable outstanding researchers in the UK to partner with the best research groups in developing countries on projects that address issues faced by developing countries.
E Ochodo, Stellenbosch University, Evidence synthesis for building a translation pipeline to eliminate infectious diseases
DEPARTMENT FOR SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
MRC African Leader Scheme Award to formally develop a pipeline approach to translating evidence into policy and practice through evidence synthesis and recommend methods for improving translation of evidence into policy and practice. Within Africa.
Energy Innovation for Reducing Post Harvest Loss
DEPARTMENT FOR SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
The project uses patented heat recovery and airflow technology, coupled with solar thermal technology for agri-processing in Kenya. Working with producers and processors in value chains such as Moringa and mango - the project will deliver value for smallholder farmers by reducing post-harvest losses that occur when products are spoiled before they can reach the market. The project will demonstrate the effectiveness of solar-thermal drying for Moringa processing by designing, building and commissioning a high capacity dryer able to operate 24/7 powered entirely by renewable energy at a Moringa facility that serves 500 farmers. The solar thermal system has considerable benefits in comparison to existing technology - including faster drying, the delivery of a constant temperature that can be remotely monitored; lower cost and ease of installation. This will facilitate the production of higher-quality products that meet the quality requirements of international buyers looking to expand supply chains in the East-African region. Besides this, the project will carry out capacity building and training, including practical demonstrations of the solar thermal drying systems to increase awareness of the potential for renewable energy to deliver economic and social benefits in agricultural value chains.
Solar Hospital EnergyLeasing Demonstrator (SHIELD)
DEPARTMENT FOR SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
Kenya's public hospitals struggle with electrical power. They experience blackouts, instability in provision and have to pay variable and often quite high costs. The results of this are disastrous. When the power fails, so do the fridges and this breaks the 'cold chain'. Vaccines can be lost and expensive medicines perished, but even worse, surgeries have to be cancelled or abandoned. Even though the power is not reliable, it is still expensive and hospitals must pay significant sums each month to keep the lights on. Unfortunately, things are likely to get worse: as the climate changes extreme weather is likely to cause more significant impacts and this will cause closures and disruptions to service. Public hospitals in Kenya serve the most vulnerable populations - those who have no other options. Hence, reducing their access to healthcare has devastating consequences and can hold back the development of the cities, and towns that rely on these important healthcare providers. More positively, onsite solar energy generation provides a technological solutions with huge potential to address these key issues. We aim to install a solar system at one of Kenya's most important public hospitals. We will show that the installation can offer huge advantages to the hospital in terms of cost, reliability and stability, with the positive result that they are able to be a more effective healthcare provider to desperate patients in need of care. Solar is currently perceived as being a private sector solution, but we will work with stakeholders to show that the benefits far outweigh the risks for large consumers of energy such as hospitals. We will install a system at Meru Teaching hospital - a well known Level 5 facility - and collect a range of data on how much energy can be generated, how it is used, what operational effects it has, and how much carbon and money is saved . We want to share this data through a representative steering group with the government and other stakeholders so that they can make better choices about how energy is funded. We believe this project will make Kenya's hospitals more resilient so that they can save more lives and work through the extreme weather they face in the years ahead. We want to use this project to show other hospitals in Africa that installations such as this can be cost-effective and value-adding.
Energy Makers Academy: A mobile learning platform for universities to train rural energy innovators
DEPARTMENT FOR SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
The number of people without access to electricity in Africa dropped from almost 860 million in 2018 to 770 million in 2019 (IEA et al., 2021). However, without more sustained efforts, it is predicted that 650 million people will still live without access to electricity in 2030, despite universal access to affordable, reliable, and sustainable electricity by 2030 being a key Sustainable Development Goal (United Nations, 2015).
Towards Low Cost Soil Fertility Sensor Systems for Smallholder Food Security in Kenya
DEPARTMENT FOR SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
Food security is one of the "big four" agenda initiatives championed by the Kenyan Government. More than 80% of Kenya's population is dependent upon agriculture for employment, income, or food security needs (FAO) and a large proportion of the population are food insecure, for example 26% of children under 5 years of age suffer from malnutrition (UNICEF). The food security challenge is intensified by: reducing size of land parcels as a result of population growth; farmers being pushed into dryer lower quality land areas vulnerable to drought; conflicts resulting from competition for land; and people dropping out of nomadic life to move to settled communities dependent upon food aid (FAO). To address this, increases in agricultural productivity are needed. An important way to improve crop yield relates to better soil fertility. Optimising fertiliser strategies for soil can be summed up as: Right Source, Right Rate, Right Place, Right Time. For the greatest impact, this requires in-field measurement tools that can be used by farmers to understand the spatial changes in nutrient concentration within a field, and how these vary over time. No technology currently exists that allows this to be carried out at very low cost. The alternative to in-field testing is the use of soil laboratories in Nairobi, but these are expensive to use, far away from the farm and provide a single measurement which is not representative of the whole area farmed. In consequence, most smallholders are in the dark about the nutrition status of their soil and how it changes in response to different soil amendment approaches. This project will help address the measurement challenge by developing a new kind of sensor that can be used by farmers at very low cost to regularly test for two key soil macro-nutrients, called nitrate and phosphate. The project will take inspiration from ancient art and design based printing processes, combined with locally available natural materials (e.g. chimney soot, egg, newspaper and enzymes from plants and bacteria available within Kenya) to make extremely low cost soil sensors. By adopting a "co-creation" based philosophy, the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Kenyatta University in Nairobi and Glasgow School of Art in Glasgow will build a collaboration to deliver a step change in sensing technology for smallholder farmers in Kenya. This will be achieved by initially developing the sensor in the UK, employing a researcher from Kenya. Once a proof of concept has been created, the researcher will return to Kenya with the knowledge and understanding to recreate the sensor and test performance in greenhouse trials. The project will also involve a series of workshops where we will engage communities, industry and policy makers to ensure that we create user led solutions to address food security within Kenya. In the long term, this could be delivered to farmers either as a "factory in a box" containing the tools needed for sensor manufacture, or simply as an information pack that shows how to gather the resources required and print sensors. The project could also influence the wider region: 20 million people across Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia are food insecure (Worldbank, 2022), and face similar challenges.
British Council - Convening for strategic collaboration: the ISPF Kenya Collaborative -International Science Partnerships Fund
DEPARTMENT FOR SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
Building on the British Council's convening power and strong partnerships in Kenya, the programme will engage potential Kenya ISPF partners and grantees through initial consultation to scope out a process for regular peer-to-peer exchanges once the fund is underway. This initiative aims to foster robust cross-partnership collaboration, enhancing efficiencies and maximizing impact. It is expected to result in thematic convenings, the sharing of best practices, and the identification of lessons learned through a structured process overseen by the British Council in Kenya. The process will address scalability and replicability of approaches and outputs, aiming to foster cross-partner and cross-grantee connections while integrating sustainability and long-term impact from the outset. The British High Commission, fully supportive of this approach, has suggested co-chairing the collaborative effort with the British Council, which provides an excellent opportunity to link with other UK-funded programmes. The proposed strategy promises a more coherent portfolio of work, enabling DSIT and the UK in Kenya to develop a stronger offer and narrative when engaging with Kenyan Government counterparts. Furthermore, this programme is ODA eligible, as its primary objective is to promote the economic development and welfare of Kenya, a country eligible for Official Development Assistance, by enhancing collaborative networks and fostering sustainable development initiatives.
British Council - Convening for strategic collaboration: the ISPF Kenya Collaborative -International Science Partnerships Fund
DEPARTMENT FOR SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
Building on the British Council's convening power and strong partnerships in Kenya, the programme will engage potential Kenya ISPF partners and grantees through initial consultation to scope out a process for regular peer-to-peer exchanges once the fund is underway. This initiative aims to foster robust cross-partnership collaboration, enhancing efficiencies and maximizing impact. It is expected to result in thematic convenings, the sharing of best practices, and the identification of lessons learned through a structured process overseen by the British Council in Kenya. The process will address scalability and replicability of approaches and outputs, aiming to foster cross-partner and cross-grantee connections while integrating sustainability and long-term impact from the outset. The British High Commission, fully supportive of this approach, has suggested co-chairing the collaborative effort with the British Council, which provides an excellent opportunity to link with other UK-funded programmes. The proposed strategy promises a more coherent portfolio of work, enabling DSIT and the UK in Kenya to develop a stronger offer and narrative when engaging with Kenyan Government counterparts. Furthermore, this programme is ODA eligible, as its primary objective is to promote the economic development and welfare of Kenya, a country eligible for Official Development Assistance, by enhancing collaborative networks and fostering sustainable development initiatives.
BioGas MicroGrid in a box (BGMG)
DEPARTMENT FOR SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
BGMG (Bio Gas Micro Grid in a box) will develop a hybrid renewable energy hub for deployment in off grid communities. It combines solar, wind and biogas energy resources in one drop-in containerised unit with electrical energy stored and deployed from batteries and waste heat recovered for local utilisation. The project expands the work of the partners in the recent highly successful Energy Catalyst WEGEN project that resulted in development and subsequent commercial sales of a novel 6kW plug-and-play biogas generator technology. The partners include WEGEN collaborators CAGE Technologies Ltd (CTL)/OakTec (power system technology developer), Sistema Bio (biogas system OEM and system trial and demonstration) and Sutton Power Engineering ( generator OEM and supplier of solar hardware). The partners will develop an intelligent energy management platform to integrate, manage and distribute the bio/solar/wind energy inputs based on a development of the existing CTL/OakTec intelligent control platform. Additional outputs will be an application of the WEGEN biogas engine technology to a new modular liquid cooled engine family that will allow a range of power outputs to suit application requirements delivering world leading fuel efficiency and low emissions. The liquid cooled engines will employ CHP technology to capture waste heat for distribution. CTL and Sutton have considerable experience of hybrid power systems having deployed LPG-solar-battery systems for site welfare with the HS2 rail project at Euston, London and more recently hydrogen-solar-battery hybrid to power the cruise ship terminal in Orkney. BGMG will support the development of carbon neutral microgrids in sub-saharan Africa and India and a trial system will be deployed to Kenya and be tested in a high profile location. Applications include stand-alone power for large food and agricultural businesses, villages, schools, hospitals and health-centres and public buildings. Bio-waste from the immediate location including food can be used in the feedstock. As global energy prices rise the business case for BGMG becomes stronger. Whilst the system will be more costly than a simpler generator or solar array it can be funded to the customer on a 'machinery as a service' basis by Sistema's established easy payment business model and will enjoy minimal fuel and running costs over its lifetime giving it a much lower lifetime cost than conventional fossil based power systems. Immediate commercial opportunities include powering larger farms, food production businesses including rice mills where rice straw is used as part of the AD feedstock, agricultural processing and charging EV's.
Weather & Climate Service Partnership (WCSSP) Kenya - Met Office
DEPARTMENT FOR SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
Extreme weather and climate change is an area of concern for Kenya and the southern African region, and in the coming decades many regions are expected to become hotter and drier. Kenya may also experience more extreme weather, such as droughts and floods. Working collaboratively to address the challenges presented by extreme weather and climate will help safeguard lives and livelihoods across southern Africa, especially in the most vulnerable communities and help reduce the costs of disaster recovery and adaption for the Kenyan government. Outputs from this activity are being translated into products and services to assist governments, businesses and communities in decision-making around weather and climate resilience and adaptation. Through tackling challenges in multiple sectors including water, energy, health and food security, these services will help inform disaster risk-reduction strategies within Kenya and the wider African continent.
Neonatal early warning score for hypothermia evaluation and treatment (NEWS-HEAT): a cluster randomised controlled trial with internal pilot phase
DEPARTMENT FOR SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
Globally, 15 million babies are born prematurely every year. One million babies die before their 5th birthday, many due to complications of prematurity. In Kenya, the neonatal mortality rate (death in the first month of life) is 20 per 1000 live births. This is 8 times higher than the UK and much higher than the Sustainable Development Goals' target of less than 12 per 1000 live births by 2030. Babies born premature (before 37 weeks) or low birth weight (LBW; less than 2.5kg) often become cold (hypothermia) after birth as they cannot keep themselves warm. In Kenya, around half of babies who are admitted for neonatal care have hypothermia on admission. Cold babies are more likely to die or have other life-threatening conditions. Keeping babies warm in the labour ward and during transfer for further care is vital. In 2018, our multidisciplinary UK-Kenya collaboration started a research programme, to investigate if an early warning score could help identify preterm babies who are sicker, where action needs to be taken quickly. An early warning score (EWS) is a simple, paper document which uses a traffic-light colour-coded system to record babies' vital signs, like temperature, offering a simple way for health professionals to identify babies who need additional care. This prompts them to act, monitor how the baby responded and decide if further action is needed. We found that using EWS is possible and health professionals, parents and policy-makers support its use. Labour wards in Kenya are often under-resourced and staff are not fully trained in newborn care. Although early essential newborn care (EENC) is standard care it is not well implemented. Without a clear process of how to record temperature, put in measures to keep babies warm, and monitor their progress, babies often get cold. NEWS-HEAT is a care bundle, which includes evidence-based actions to keep babies warm and prevent hypothermia. It is a paper chart with an EWS and decision-aid to trigger action and monitor babies. NEWS-HEAT could help staff and parents note when babies are cold, act to warm them, and continue to monitor to ensure babies stay warm. We will test if NEWS-HEAT will reduce the number of babies who are cold. We will randomly allocate 28 hospitals to use EENC, with or without the NEWS-HEAT bundle. Each hospital will take part for 8 months. In all hospitals, before any intervention takes place, we will collect baseline data on all preterm/LBW babies. Then, all hospitals will receive training in EENC, using a train-the-trainer approach. Finally, staff in half of hospitals will receive training on and then implement the NEWS-HEAT care bundle. The other half of hospitals will continue to use EENC alone. We will measure which group of hospitals has fewer babies who became cold by recording the temperatures at the point of admission for newborn care. We will also check other important outcomes including how many babies die within 1 week of birth. We anticipate 11,200 babies being involved. We will also conduct a process evaluation to check if NEWS-HEAT is implemented properly and staff views of it. Our partners include the Ministry of Health and a parent support group. NEWS-HEAT has the potential to reduce hypothermia and save babies' lives in Kenya and other low and middle income countries, contributing to reaching the Sustainable Development Goals.
Evaluation of low birth weight infant post-discharge outcomes and development of community-based follow-up and monitoring strategies in Africa
DEPARTMENT FOR SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
MRC ARL to evaluate low birth weight infant post-discharge outcomes and development of community-based follow-up and monitoring strategies in Africa
Measuring the medium-term impact of school-based interventions as girls transition into adulthood
DEPARTMENT FOR SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
MRC AGHRB Award to Measure the medium-term impact of school-based interventions as girls transition into adulthood in Kenya
Royal Academy of Engineering Core - Engineering a Better World
DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
Engineering a Better World is a unique programme focused on achieving sustainable development, through innovative, collaborative, challenge-led engineering. COVID-19