Climate Technology Centre & Network (CTCN) held a three-day capacity development workshop in Nairobi, Kenya, on technologies for soil carbon enhancement in Africa. The workshop brought together 26 representatives from 14 countries, including the National Designated Entities (NDEs) and representatives from the Ministries of Agriculture from Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Soil carbon storage plays a key role in climate change mitigation. However, African countries are fast depleting their soil carbon due to accelerated agricultural development, deforestation and soil degradation. With the growing call for urgent action on climate change, carbon sequestration is critical to achieving climate targets. African countries would greatly benefit from soil carbon enhancing technologies to sequester carbon at a much faster rate. 

CTCN catalyzes developing countries in accessing financing for technology deployment and addressing the barriers for large scale deployment. Agriculture, land use and forestry are thematic areas embedded across CTCN’s technical assistanceportfolio, with 54 requests submitted to the CTCN specifically related to agriculture. The objective of this workshop was therefore to share experiences and best practices from around the globe, as well as to inspire countries to develop programs for greater integration of soil carbon sequestration technologies into their national efforts in meeting their climate change adaptation and mitigation goals. 

“The workshop has been an eye-opener to me. It has provided me with insights for soils and land management technologies to make them more productive while keeping them healthy through using several agricultural technologies to increase soil carbon”, said Mr. Lyson Kampira from Malawi National Commission for Science and Technology, the CTCN National Designated Entity.

Soil carbon sequestration is an area that presents a win-win solution for mitigating climate change and for increasing resilience (carbon rich soils constitutes healthy soils, increases soil fertility, reduces erosion, retains water better, enable stronger resilience to extreme weather variations, etc.). The training covered various topics on understanding soil carbon; technologies having potential to enhance soil carbon stock in Africa; advanced approaches to monitoring and visualizing soil carbon stock; technology adoption, scaling and impacts and matching soil enhancement technological potential with country NDCs. The workshop also included visits to three modern soil laboratories hosted by CTCN Consortium partner ICRAF. 

The event was jointly organized by CTCN and ICRAF, it was financed by the European Commission. 

CTCN Keyword Matches: Africa, Climate change monitoring, CO2 storage technologies, Kenya, Malawi, Soil moisture conservation techniques