Journal of Economics and Sustainable Development www.iiste.org ISSN 2222-1700 (Paper) ISSN 2222-2855 (Online) Vol.11, No.10, 2020 112 Evaluation of Opportunities and Constraints in Kenya’s Drive to Green Economy Status Gatama Stella Muthoni Joshua Cheboiwo Kenya Forestry Research Institute, P.O Box 201412-00200, Nairobi Abstract Achieving green economy requires the achievement of a well-balanced economy that values social and environmental issues. The 2012 Rio de Janeiro summit consisted of two agenda items “Green Economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication and international framework for sustainable development (Barbara U. et al., 2012) Ecosystems are facing risks due to the increasing rates of depletion in natural resources to satisfy human needs and wants. A robust and regulatory framework is therefore important for effective implementation and management of green economy policies that will lead to the improvement of well-being such as combating global climate change, energy insecurity and ecological scarcity. Diversity in market facilitation will also support market institutions and participants to encourage green economic development with great support from policies that can be used to build and maintain the market infrastructure, including policies within various sectors. The output of this study recommends the bridging of the gap within Green Economy development and the forestry sector plays a major role in promoting clean, secure and sustainable environments by improving the tree cover through planting of trees and creation of awareness. In addition, weak and fragmented policy coordination among relevant ministries and government agencies such as low technology, innovation and Research and Development (R&D) uptake and weak capacity to meet quality and technical standards to be addressed. Keywords: Green economy, forest management, forest governance, sustainable development DOI: 10.7176/JESD/11-10-13 Publication date:May 31 st 2020 1. Introduction Gradually, information awareness on green economy has greatly improved as people have now gained more interest on sustainable development which has been accelerated by various environmental, social and economic challenges such as; loss of biodiversity, increased levels of poverty and loss of quality diverse cultures (J.A. Puppim de Oliveira et al., 2013). Green economy focuses on the reverse of these negative impacts through sustainable development by making wise decisions in production and consumption of goods and services obtained from the environment so as to sustain economies and livelihoods that are viewed as components of the ecosystem. The past decade has seen green economy emerge as an essential policy framework for sustainable development in both developed and developing countries. It is a representation of an exciting framework capable of delivering more resource efficient, lower carbon, less environmentally damaging, and more socially inclusive societies (Hiraldo, Rocío; Tanner, Thomas, 2011). There are tensions between competing green economy discourses and a number of different definitions exist, all of which have major shortcomings. This is further complicated by varying underlying concepts of the ‘weak’,’ transformational’ and ‘strong’ green economy. Several important definitions focus on the aspirational ‘transformational green economy’ (Afful-Koomsom, 2012). To enable and to track this ‘transformation’, economic and environmental measurement is essential. Current approaches are still in development, lack available data or show inconsistencies with proposed definitions, and thus may neither support effective decision-making nor efforts to transform economies. Narrowing down to Kenya, the country displays one the most dynamic economies in Africa; however, it faces considerable economic, environmental and social challenges. From climate change and natural resource depletion to high poverty rates and rising unemployment, the country is addressing these concerns through its commitment to a low-carbon and resource-efficient development pathway. The recent years saw the country adopt a number of green economy-related approaches and policies. Examples of these policies are: implementing renewable energy feed-in tariffs in 2008, embedding sustainable natural resource utilization into its 2010 Constitution and mainstreaming green economy in its Second Medium Term Plan (J.K. Kiplagat et al., 2011) The following objectives were addressed during the research: a) To evaluate socio-environmental factors that address the adaptation of green economy in Kenya b) To assess opportunities and constraints in achieving green economy development in Kenya c) To examine the impacts of policy interventions within the green economy development 2.0 Materials and Methods 2.1 Study Design We used a combined evaluation phase that focused on desktop study, field trips consultation exercises with experts and final beneficiaries provided the evaluation team with data, resources and insights to undertake the final analysis.