Kisumu County to pilot financial tracking in bid to improve food systems

 

GAIN country director Ruth Okowa and Kisumu county's Agriculture CEC Kenneth Onyango addresses journalists in Kisumu. [Harold Odhiambo, Standard]

Keen to bolster food security in the country, stakeholders have unveiled an ambitious financial tracking initiative to help counties monitor investments in food systems.

Kisumu County, which has been selected to pilot the program for the next six months, hopes to use it to improve its investments in the key food systems and provide a footprint for other devolved units.

The initiative, spearheaded by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, seeks to strengthen transparency and accountability in how funds are allocated and utilised within the food sector.

Speaking during the project’s inception workshop in Kisumu, GAIN Country Director Ruth Okowa said the Financial Flows Tracking for Food Systems programme will analyse how resources are distributed across agriculture, storage infrastructure, food value chains and nutrition-related interventions.

“We are looking at how resources move within the food system, how much is invested, where it is invested, and whether those investments are aligned to food and nutrition security outcomes,” Okowa said.

The pilot places Kisumu at the centre of a national effort to reform food system financing, with lessons from the county expected to inform a nationwide rollout across the remaining 46 counties.

The programme falls under the County-Led Food Systems Transformation through Advancing Financial Tracking and Capacity Enhancement for Scalable Investments Project (COFFCI), which builds on earlier institutional assessments conducted jointly with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Data shared during the workshop revealed that Kenya invested about USD 6.5 billion in food systems between 2019 and 2022, with annual spending averaging between USD 1.4 billion and USD 1.5 billion.

Approximately 75 per cent of the financing came from domestic resources, with 56 per cent directed to agriculture, value chains and infrastructure.

Despite the significant investments, Okowa noted that counties still lack effective mechanisms to track financial flows at the local level.

A diagnostic study conducted between 2024 and 2025 identified several gaps, including fragmented data systems, weak coordination mechanisms, limited financial tracking tools and inadequate technical capacity.

“These weaknesses limit transparency and make it difficult for counties to design high-impact and bankable food systems programmes,” she said.

Williams Hamisi, FAO Assistant Country Representative, noted that the conversation in Kenya is increasingly shifting towards a comprehensive food systems approach rather than addressing agriculture and nutrition separately.

“There is need to look at food and nutrition security as a system where every unit must function effectively,” Hamisi said.

He added that inadequate funding continues to undermine the sector, noting that countries are encouraged to allocate at least 10 per cent of their national budgets to agriculture in line with continental commitments.

“This is the only way we will achieve food and nutrition security by ensuring that all the units that make up the system are working,” he said.

The project aims to strengthen county-level financial transparency, planning, and institutional capacity in food systems and is funded by the Embassy of Ireland in Kenya.

According to the Embassy, by improving how food systems investments are tracked and aligned, the project will help ensure that public and partner resources deliver sustainable impact for farmers, women, youth, and vulnerable communities.

Kisumu County Executive Committee Member for Agriculture Kenneth Onyango acknowledged that funding constraints remain a major challenge at the county level.

Currently, the county allocates between two and three per cent of its budget to agriculture, significantly below the recommended threshold.

“With such limited allocation, it is difficult to achieve the scale of transformation required in the sector,” Onyango said.

As part of its broader agri-nutrition agenda, the county has also established a multi-sectoral nutrition coordination mechanism to integrate nutrition-sensitive programming across government departments.

Onyango said improved financial tracking will help the county identify funding gaps and allocate resources more efficiently across agriculture, nutrition, infrastructure and environmental programmes.