Cross-boundary policy entrepreneurship for climate-smart agriculture in Kenya

Abstract

Many initiatives to address contemporary complex challenges require the crossing of sector, domain, and level boundaries, which policy entrepreneurs are believed to facilitate. This study aims to enhance our understanding of how, why, and with what effect such entrepreneurs operate to cross boundaries. As this requires an account of both entrepreneurial strategy and the surrounding policy environment, we embed entrepreneurship in the policy frameworks of multiple streams, advocacy coalitions, and punctuated equilibrium. We use qualitative methods to analyse policy development for climate-smart agriculture (CSA) in Kenya. CSA is a cross-cutting strategy to sustainably increase agricultural productivity, resilience, and food security while curtailing greenhouse gas emissions. Our results demonstrate that policy entrepreneurs target varying ideas, interests, and institutions across boundaries in order to establish cross-boundary linkages, but this requires additional resources including connections, funding, and time. Simultaneously, this process offers opportunities, for instance, regarding choice of audience and potential resources to tap. Cross-boundary entrepreneurial strategies include venue shopping to soften up communities; framing CSA in multiple ways to address different audiences; demonstrating brokerage between coalitions through impartial leadership and creating a neutral institutional setting; and process manipulation to bypass complexities arising from the scattered policy environment. Although entrepreneurs managed to realize the adoption of a Kenya CSA strategy, the process displays limited changes in policymakers' ideas; the policy remains the main responsibility of the agriculture ministry alone and receives limited support from local authorities. This raises questions regarding the cross-boundary nature and implementability of this strategy.

Are local development plans mainstreaming climate-smart agriculture? A mixed-content analysis of medium-term development plans in semi-arid Ghana

“…Generally, there is a paucity of literature on CSA mainstreaming in local development plans as most researchers have focused on national discourses ( e.g., Clapp et al 2018 ; Faling and Biesbroek 2019 ; Totin et al, 2018 ; Zougmoré et al 2016 ; Zougmoré et al 2019 ) and CSA adoption by farmers and their implications for agriculture productivity ( e.g., Khonje et al 2018 ; Ng’ombe et al 2017 ; Tankha et al 2020 ). These studies are important for understanding the factors that can inhibit or enhance farmers’ adoption of CSA.…”

“…Climate-smart agriculture targets adaptive and resilience practices that address climate change impacts on agriculture production (FAO 2017 , p. 1; Tankha et al 2020 , 109), minimizing the sector’s contribution to GHG emissions (Faling and Biesbroek 2019 ; Steenwerth et al 2014 , p. 533) while increasing farmers’ income (Akrofi-Atitianti et al 2018 , p. 10; FAO 2017 , p. 1). CSA forms part of the global call to mainstream climate change in agriculture production (Chandra et al 2018 , p. 526; Newell et al 2018 , p. 54; Tankha et al 2020 , pp.…”

“…Nonetheless, the literature that exists points to different institutional factors that contribute to CSA mainstreaming challenges. For instance, comprehensive regulatory frameworks are crucial for enabling stakeholders in the agriculture sector to mainstream CSA ( see Brandt et al 2017 ; Engel and Muller 2016 ; Faling and Biesbroek 2019 ). Additionally, CSA policies have often focused on engineering and technological solutions, which are inadequate to address climate change impacts on agriculture (Newell et al 2018 , p. 54; Totin et al 2018 , p. 2) because they fail to account for social, cultural, and institutional contexts.…”

Climate mainstreaming via national climate funds: the experiences of Bangladesh and Ethiopia

“…Another reason why climate objectives may be prevalent in policy frames but remain absent from sectoral plans and strategies is international aid. For example, ministries that lead the design of climate policies may try to strategically align themselves with donors to be responsive to their priorities (Faling & Biesbroek, 2019;Walsh, 2017). Analyzing policies on climate-smart agriculture in Kenya, Faling and Biesbroek (2019) found that those advocating for climate-smart agriculture policies pointed to the availability of international climate finance.…”

The promises and pitfalls of polysemic ideas: ‘One Health’ and antimicrobial resistance policy in Australia and the UK

“…For example, Skogstad and Wilder (2019) claim that 'multidimensional ideas' not only help create a 'bandwagoning' effect, but also ensure that opposition remains fragmented. Similarly, Faling and Biesbroek (2019) emphasise the importance of employing multiple frames in building cross-sectoral coalitions.…”