Kenya embeds disaster risk tags in budget planning

Kenya has strengthened its disaster financing framework by integrating disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation spending into national budgeting, giving policymakers a clearer view of how public money is being used to build resilience.

A case study published by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction on September 25 details how the National Treasury introduced a disaster and climate budget tagging and expenditure tracking system. The mechanism brings climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction into public financial management rather than treating them as separate spending priorities.

The initiative was requested by the Treasury and supported by UNDRR through the Intra-African, Caribbean and Pacific Disaster Risk Reduction Programme. It was designed to improve expenditure tracking, institutional capacity and coordination while providing evidence for Kenya’s Disaster Risk Management Strategy 2025–2030 and Disaster Risk Financing Strategy 2026–2030.

The tagging exercise enables ministries, departments and agencies to identify expenditure that contributes to reducing disaster and climate risks. That is intended to show where resources are concentrated, reveal financing gaps and give officials a stronger basis for allocating money during future budget cycles.

Kenya’s approach addresses a longstanding problem in public finance: adaptation and disaster reduction programmes frequently overlap but can be planned, classified and reported separately. An integrated tag allows expenditure serving both objectives to be identified consistently, reducing the risk of fragmented accounting or double counting.

The Treasury incorporated climate budget tagging guidelines into the government’s budget process, with guidelines included in instructions for finalising the 2026-27 budget and medium-term spending plans. Earlier work had also established reporting requirements for disaster-related expenditure, providing a foundation for the broader system.

Officials across government received training in integrated disaster reduction and climate adaptation approaches, policy coherence and risk-informed planning. An inter-agency taskforce also guided preparation of the Disaster Risk Financing Strategy 2026–2030, linking information generated through expenditure tracking with decisions about financial preparedness.

The strategy, launched by the National Treasury in June, seeks to move Kenya from predominantly reactive, crisis-driven financing towards advance financial preparation. It covers national and county governments and broadens the country’s approach beyond retaining or transferring financial risk to include investment that reduces risk before disasters occur.

Ronald Inyangala, the Treasury’s Director of Financial and Sectoral Affairs, said at the strategy’s launch that Kenya needed a financial framework capable of helping the country anticipate, absorb and recover from disasters while protecting vulnerable people and economic progress.

The financing strategy identifies a range of instruments and measures available to government, while placing greater emphasis on risk information, planning and investment. UNDRR said better risk data and analytics were essential because financing decisions depend on understanding where risks are located, how they change and what their fiscal consequences may be.

The need for stronger financial preparedness was highlighted by Kenya’s 2024 March-April-May floods. Government and UN figures cited in the strategy process put the number of people affected at about 410,000, with 315 deaths and damage estimated at 187 billion Kenyan shillings.

Budget-tagging data have also begun to provide a more detailed picture of government resilience spending. Kenya’s financing strategy, drawing on the country’s disaster reduction and climate adaptation budget-tagging report, shows substantial 2023-24 allocations in sectors including crop development, irrigation, medical services, housing and urban development, transport, water and sanitation and wildlife.

The system forms part of a wider effort to embed climate and disaster considerations in fiscal management. Kenya has also developed climate-related fiscal risk scenarios and worked to integrate climate and disaster risk screening into public investment appraisal, alongside changes to planning and financial management processes.

The budget-tagging model follows UNDRR guidance encouraging governments to quantify adaptation and disaster reduction expenditure together, integrate those classifications into budget decisions, establish institutional responsibilities and use reporting and monitoring to improve allocations over time.