Coordination: a game-changer in Kenya’s food systems transformation?

“We have not invested enough in ensuring that the different efforts we put into transforming our food systems are adequately coordinated, and that might be our biggest undoing as a country and a sector,” said Agatha Thuo, Chief Executive Officer of the Agricultural Sector Network.

Agatha recently participated in our expert interview which informed our latest policy brief centering on how Kenya enhance the agrifood sector by strengthening coordination mechanisms. Her words reflect a critical reality: while Kenya has taken commendable steps toward food systems transformation, the success of these efforts hinges on addressing a fundamental challenge—effective coordination.

In recent years, the global call to transform food systems has gained significant traction, and Kenya is no exception. With its Agricultural Sector Transformation and Growth Strategy 2019–2029 (ASTGS), the Kenyan government has laid out a roadmap to achieve sustainable and inclusive agricultural transformation. Kenya has set out to achieve nothing less but eradicating hunger, raising farmers’ incomes, and preserving the natural base for food production (among many other action areas). However, turning these commitments into action is no small feat.

A food systems approach inherently adds complexity, requiring multi-sectoral collaboration across agriculture, environment, forestry, nutrition, health, and industry. This complexity involves diverse stakeholders with often conflicting priorities and perspectives. A new policy brief by TMG Research sheds light on how Kenya can overcome challenges in its agrifood sector by strengthening coordination mechanisms—most notably through revamping the Agriculture Transformation Office (ATO). The brief is based on discussions with a range of Kenyan agrifood experts.

The coordination gap

Transforming food systems isn’t just about implementing scientific solutions—it’s also a sociopolitical challenge. In Kenya, stakeholders, including 47 county governments, the national government, private companies, civil society organizations, academia, and development partners, must align their efforts to achieve a common vision.

While the ASTGS outlines clear goals, the strategies to achieve these goals often diverge. For example, debates center on whether to prioritize smallholder farming practices or invest in large-scale, export-oriented agriculture. Such competing ideologies underline the need for a strong coordinating body to mediate these tensions and drive coherent, inclusive policies.

However, Kenya's existing coordination mechanisms face critical challenges, including sporadic engagement between government and non-state actors, underfunded and inconsistently implemented county-level structures, and capacity constraints in key government institutions. These gaps hinder sustained collaboration, limit representation of marginalized voices, and impede effective governance.

A Path Forward: Strengthening coordination mechanisms

The policy brief reviews the food systems coordination landscape, existing mechanisms, and governance structures for coordination, offering specific recommendations to strengthen these frameworks.  A key focus lies on enhancing the ATO as a national, overarching coordination mechanism. By strengthening the ATO, Kenya can leverage its existing structure to drive meaningful change. Experts agree that revamping the ATO offers continuity, cost-efficiency, and faster implementation compared to creating new institutions.

To strengthen the ATO, the policy brief recommends:

• clarifying its mandate to encompass broader food systems governance, 

• enhancing transparency to build trust, 

• fostering multi-stakeholder engagement through regular dialogues, 

• increasing capacity and securing sustainable funding, 

• and improving county-level coordination.

As we explore a multi-stakeholder approach for strengthening the ATO structure and its engagement with other stakeholders, interviewee Nancy Rapando of WWF Kenya further emphasized,

“We need to work on trust. If actors do not trust each other, there is no way they can be on the same table.”

The full policy brief can be found here

This blog article was written by Emmanuel Atamba and Larissa Stiem-Bhatia, TMG Research gGmbH

Disclaimer: The policy brief is part of the “Governance of Food Systems Transformation” project, implemented by TMG and financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)