Kenya Launches Five-Year Disaster Financing Strategy to Strengthen Climate Resilience

By Our Reporter Maurice Momanyi

The National Treasury has launched Kenya’s Disaster Risk Financing (DRF) Strategy 2026–2030, a new framework designed to strengthen the country’s ability to prepare for and respond to disasters such as floods and droughts. Developed with technical support from the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), the strategy shifts Kenya from relying on emergency funding after disasters to proactive financial planning aimed at protecting lives, livelihoods and economic development.

The strategy seeks to enhance the financial capacity of both national and county governments to manage disaster risks across the entire disaster management cycle. Speaking during the launch on behalf of the Cabinet Secretary for the National Treasury, Director of Financial and Sectoral Affairs Ronald Inyangala said the strategy provides a robust financial framework that will enable Kenya to anticipate, absorb and recover from disasters while safeguarding vulnerable communities and sustaining economic growth.

The launch comes as Kenya continues to grapple with increasingly frequent climate-related disasters. According to the Treasury, the devastating March-April-May floods of 2024 affected about 410,000 people, claimed 315 lives and caused losses estimated at KSh187 billion. The new strategy builds on lessons from the previous 2018–2022 framework by expanding beyond disaster response financing to include investments that reduce disaster risks before they occur, while promoting gender equality and social inclusion.

UNDRR said it supported the National Treasury in developing disaster risk financing tools and a budgeting system that enables the government to better track and allocate resources for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. The strategy was developed through extensive consultations involving government agencies, civil society, the private sector, development partners and other stakeholders to ensure it addresses a wide range of disaster risks facing the country.

The strategy complements the National Disaster Risk Management Act 2026, signed into law by President William Ruto in May, which established the National Disaster Risk Management Authority and county disaster management committees to coordinate disaster preparedness and response. Together with the Division of Revenue Act, 2026, the new framework is expected to strengthen Kenya’s disaster governance, improve financial preparedness and position the country as a regional leader in building resilience against climate-related disasters.