CAA’s September 2026 knowledge-sharing event in Nairobi, successfully brought together over 50 project participants, and climate stakeholders to exchange on the initiative’s impact and best practices.
“What you produce over the next two days will inform where Canada goes next in terms of climate action and technical assistance we want to think about here on the continent.” – H.E. Joshua Tabah, High Commissioner of Canada to Kenya
Climate Action Africa Hosts 2-Day Knowledge Sharing Event
The 2-day knowledge-sharing event in Nairobi, Kenya was successfully completed, bringing together the Climate Action in Africa team and several partners on September 22 -23, 2026. This gathering offered an exceptional opportunity to recognize nearly six years of impact: 42 technical assistance initiatives and 14 South-South exchanges across 34 African countries, helping advance Africa’s climate objectives.
Participants validated the findings and saw the EDM-CAA model as worth continuing. As grant funding tightens, its lessons matter more, and the opportunity is to connect demand-driven expertise with national programs and with finance, while designing ownership of results in from the start.
Canada is proud to support climate action in sub-Saharan Africa through the Expert Deployment Mechanism for Climate Action in Africa, which will conclude this fall.
A sincere thank you to the High Commission of Canada to Kenya for hosting a reception after the event. Thank you to Samuel Hall colleagues, who designed and facilitated the Knowledge Harvesting Event in Nairobi. Having led two of the program’s technical assistance initiatives, in Kenya and Sierra Leone over the past two years, it was another opportunity to observe and capture CAA’s implementation directly from the perspectives of partners and other experts. Climate stakeholders from nearly six years of work came together not to present results, but to test them.
What made the difference:
“Honesty was the brief. When the funder opens by asking people not to gloss over anything, the conversation changes. Those who lived it spoke first. Others were there to challenge and compare, not to confirm. Generic lessons weren’t allowed.” – Samuel Hall Event Report
The candour carried into the closing panel moderated by Lisa Pfister, with Margaret Barihaihi Musana, Gareth Phillips, DK Kamau Ngugi and Daniel Fisher on the future of climate finance.
Key learning:
→ Grants alone won’t close the adaptation gap. Finance needs to recycle, for example through results-based payments.
→ Access is the bottleneck. Transaction costs keep many local organisations out.
→ What gets measured gets funded, including the hours women lose collecting water or firewood.
“It’s always inspiring to be in a room of people this committed and this open to learning.” – Samuel Hall.
EDM-CAA is funded by Global Affairs Canada and implemented by Alinea International, Econoler and WSP in Canada.
