NACOSTI held a virtual bilateral meeting to discuss its existing partnership with the UK, under the framework of the UK-Kenya Oversight Board and the Newton – Utafiti programme, which commenced implementation in 2016.
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| Prof. Peter Migun Ogada | Prof. Walter Oyawa PhD | Dr. Roy Mugiira | Ms. Margaret Muthee |
| Chairperson – NACOSTI | DG/CEO – NACOSTI | Director – NACOSTI | Chief Analyst – NACOSTI |
The meeting brought together Prof. Tom P.M. Ogada – Chair of NACOSTI Board, Prof. Walter Oyawa – Director General, NACOSTI, Dr. Roy Mugiira – Director, Directorate of Scheduled Sciences, NACOSTI, Dr. Eunice Muthengi – Acting Head, DFID East Africa Research Hub, Ms. Serah Nderitu – Science and Innovation Officer and Newton Fund Manager, Mr. Nicholas Mwangi – Policy and Programme Manager, East Africa Research Hub and Ms. Margaret Muthee – Chief Analyst, Humanities and Social Sciences, NACOSTI.
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| Eunice Muthengi – Acting Head, | Nicholas Mwangi – BHC | Serah Nderitu – BHC |
| DFID East Africa Research Hub |
The UK investment in Kenya’s ST&I’s sector is significantly high compared to other partner countries. Between 2014 and 2019, it was approximately £164 million. The funding landscape is however complex with efforts to bring coherence and to align investments, to Kenya’s development priorities, on-going, beginning with formation of the UK – Kenya Oversight Board on Research, Science, Technology and Innovation. The Newton Fund, which was launched in July 2016 has focused on 7 priority areas namely; food security; health; sustainable and renewable energy; environment and climate change; economic transition skills and jobs through manufacturing for SMEs governance, conflict resolution and security; and crosscutting issues – capacity building, big data, innovation and entrepreneurship. At the request of the UK-Kenya Oversight Board, the British High Commission and the Ministry of Education have developed a joint action plan to guide implementation of Covid-19 ST&I activities. As part of this action plan, NACOSTI will collaborate with other institutions in the ST&I sector and UK Delivery Partners. NACOSTI through a consultative process developed the national research priorities in response to demands by researchers for the country to provide direction in research that would inform policy formulation for the achievement of the national development agenda. The priorities were formed taking into consideration the prevailing socioeconomic policies and relevant national, continental and global development blueprints and goals. They are broad and cover various aspects including pandemics such as COVID-19. However, there is need to review and incorporate Digital Economy due to its profound role in supporting post COVID-19 resilience and recovery.
- Implementation of the NRPs through establishment and operationalization of the organs identified to steer the country’s research and development agenda
- Development of an implementation plan for the ST&I policy to facilitate linkage to the NRPs
- Development of the STI Roadmap to support achievement of SDGs – the process would greatly benefit from lessons learnt in development of UK’s ST&I Roadmap which was recently finalized and launched
- Harmonize funding programmes by different development partners in the ST&I sector through formation of a coordination group for the development partners – this will also facilitate mapping the various development partners and the areas they fund.
NACOSTI will continue its engagement with the British High Commission and agree on specific areas of focus on and modalities of operation – to clearly define the approach for implementing the proposed areas