Green Up Kenya: Empowering Women Farmers with Solar-Powered Solutions

Green Up Kenya is a transformative initiative by The Era of Africa (TEOA) in partnership with Participatory Approaches for Integrated Development (PAFID), aimed at breaking the cycle of poverty and climate vulnerability among women smallholder farmers in Tharaka Nithi County, Kenya. By introducing smart solar-powered irrigation systems developed by SunCulture, the project brings hope to communities struggling with drought, erratic rainfall, and rising input costs—placing the power of climate-smart agriculture directly in the hands of those who need it most.

Following a detailed technical and feasibility survey, 111 smallholder farmers—70% of them women—were selected based on vulnerability and proximity to water sources. These women, often the backbone of household food production, face the brunt of climate change with limited resources. Most have only primary education or none at all, underscoring the project's commitment to simple, inclusive training methods. The initiative will directly uplift over 100 farming households and indirectly benefit more than 600 community members through increased food production, improved livelihoods, and knowledge sharing.

More than just a technology intervention, Green Up Kenya is a story of resilience, dignity, and opportunity. It builds on TEOA’s successful track record in West Africa (Light Up Burkina) and continues its mission to scale grassroots solutions across Africa. With each solar pump installed, a woman gains water security, a family secures its food supply, and a community takes one bold step toward sustainable transformation.

The project titled “Developing Strategies to Empower Vulnerable Women Farmers Through Sustainable Finance and Mechanization for Climate Resilience in Kenya” tackles urgent challenges faced by women smallholder farmers in Tharaka Nithi County—one of Kenya’s most climate-vulnerable regions. These women, despite being the backbone of rural agriculture, are disproportionately affected by climate shocks, lack of access to mechanization, financial exclusion, and deeply rooted gender inequalities. Without targeted intervention, their potential remains untapped, their livelihoods insecure, and their families at continued risk of hunger and poverty.

This initiative offers a powerful opportunity to change that narrative. By equipping women farmers with the tools, knowledge, and support they need—sustainable finance, climate-smart mechanization, and access to insurance—the project empowers them not only to adapt to climate change but to lead their communities toward resilience and prosperity. Spearheaded by PAFID with technical expertise from the Climate Risk Institute and programme support from Climate Action Africa (CAA) under Global Affairs Canada (GAC), and implemented by Alinea International, this initiative represents a model for inclusive, data-driven development in the agricultural sector.

The project will deliver tangible results: a Gender-Responsive Technology Needs Assessment, Gender Analysis, Insurance and Mechanization Analysis, a tailored MEL Framework, and Social and Environmental Safeguards. It will also build local and national capacity through targeted workshops. Expected impacts include improved institutional and stakeholder capacity, better-aligned gender-inclusive policies, informed access to finance and technology for women, reduced social and environmental risks, and a strong foundation for scaling gender-responsive agricultural interventions across vulnerable regions in Kenya.

Value: US$ 2,000,000

Name of Client: World Food Programme (WFP)

Description of Programme: FtMA is a consortium of six agri-focused organizations, with the mission of making markets work better for smallholder farmers. Through a demand-led approach, FtMA works with local agricultural ecosystem players to sustainably improve farmer livelihoods whilst fostering the commercial viability of value chain stakeholders. FtMA promotes the growth of viable smallholder business models through strategic and hands-on partnerships. In Kenya, FtMA is working across 13 Counties and PAFID is training smallholder farmers and private and public sector actors in both Climate-Smart Agriculture covering identified main value chains and agroforestry.

covering Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania and managed by the Conservation Farming Unit (CFU) Zambia. After successful implementation of the Conservation Agriculture Regional Programme (2010 – 2015), PAFID was again selected as the CFU’s in-country partner to implement RCSAP in Kenya. The aim of the programme is to deliver high calibre Climate Smart Agriculture Conservation Farming Minimum Tillage (CSA CF MT) training to smallholder farmers in drought-prone Counties of Eastern Kenya (Makueni, Kitui and Meru) and empower CSOs to advocate for and promote CSA CF MT causing increased on-farm food security, climate mitigation and economic resilience for vulnerable farming households and communities. The programme will engage with all private and public actors in the sector so that a unified CSA CF MT methodology and approach is delivered to smallholder farmers.

Value: € 2,850,000.00

The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) with support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Royal Norwegian Government implemented a Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Programme across the East and Southern Africa Region (ESA). Conservation Agriculture was a major component of the programme.

PAFID as the Kenyan in-country partner of the Zambian Conservation Farming Unit was directly responsible for the successful implementation of the four-year Conservation Agriculture Regional Programme across eleven Counties in Kenya ranging from areas of high to low agricultural potential (see where we work)

The strategic purpose of this programme was to cause 17,665 small and medium-scale farmers to adopt more climate-resilient, environmentally sustainable and productive Conservation Agriculture practices and to reduce the negative impacts on the environment caused by conventional tillage practices. By programme end over 90,000 farmers had been trained in Conservation Agriculture out of whom nearly 25,000 adopted Conservation Agriculture on at least a portion of their land.

Value: € 317,000.00

This programme focused on Integrating Conservation Agriculture into the agriculture value chain by increasing the involvement of selected private sector suppliers and service providers in the adoption of Conservation Agriculture through existing commercial platforms.  PAFID trained small-holder farmers and cotton growers in the arid and semi-arid Counties of Eastern Kenya in Conservation Agriculture as well as private sector service suppliers to provide professional, timely and cost-efficient mechanized minimum tillage services and herbicide application services to farmers.

By strengthening the involvement and the capacity of the private sector in the delivery of yield-enhancing products and services and knowledge about Conservation Agriculture, PAFID ensured the long-term systemic adoption of Conservation Agriculture practices by farmers in these regions.

Value: € 843,000.00

PAFID was engaged as a strategic partner by CLUSA in this USAID funded programme located in five coastal Counties and Nairobi. The programme covered an initial two year period and was extended by a further two years. PAFID’s role in the partnership focused on empowering the youth in these Counties by training them, as well as public sector extension staff, in the technical aspects of Conservation Agriculture so that they could improve their socio-economic base by engaging in sustainable agriculture.