The aim of Kenya’s Vision 2030 initiative is to create a globally competitive and prosperous nation
with a high quality of life by the year 2030. The success of this approach will depend to a large extent
on the global trade patterns shaping the opportunities that Kenya faces.
Our analysis suggests that over the next 10 years, global trade patterns will be transformed by climate
change, international mitigation, and natural resource scarcity, resulting in an inevitable shift over time
to a low carbon global economy. This study has been asking what this might look like. What impact
will it have on Kenya’s competitiveness and growth? What threats and opportunities will it create?
And how should policy-makers and businesses respond?
Achieving competitiveness is important for achieving growth and development, and most countries are
keen to identify and support domestic sectors where they may have a competitive advantage. At the
same time, many countries are developing green growth or climate compatible development strategies
in order to promote sustainable growth trajectories. Yet these two sets of analysis are rarely brought
together to ask how climate change, mitigation policies and natural resource scarcity will affect
patterns of trade and comparative advantage at the global level, or to assess the implications of these
global changes for national policy.
These questions are the subject of a research programme that aims to analyse how these drivers might
affect economic prospects in low-income countries (LICs), and how they might achieve ‘low carbon
competitiveness’ (i.e. remain or become competitive in a future, low carbon global economy), and to
develop a ‘Low Carbon Competitiveness Diagnostic’ (LCCD), a framework to help policy-makers
analyse these issues in their own particular country context. The study does not purport to provide
detailed policy recommendations, as that can be done only on the basis of much more detailed
analysis. It simply aims to highlight these drivers of change and their possible impacts, to demonstrate
the importance of taking these trends into account when designing a national growth policy, and
ultimately to provide a diagnostic tool to assist with this analysis at the national level.
The research explores these issues through case studies in three LICs: Cambodia, Kenya and Nepal.
The aim is to raise awareness and stimulate discussion about the issues at the national level in these
three countries, while at the same time facilitating the development of the diagnostic tool, which would
be applicable to a wider set of LICs. Once again, the objective is not to provide detailed policy
recommendations but rather to set out some possible policy and business responses to the issues
identified, that would require further discussion and much more detailed analysis in each particular
country context. This Policy Brief is the output of the case study in Kenya.