NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 25— Kenya has launched a 10-year strategy to turn its biological resources, scientific research and innovation capacity into new industries, investments and jobs in push to shift from exporting raw materials towards building a knowledge-driven economy.

📻 Breaking It Down

Prime Cabinet Secretary(PCS) Musalia Mudavadi said the Kenya National Bioeconomy Strategy 2026–2036 would help the country move beyond producing and exporting primary biological resources by increasing domestic value addition and commercialising scientific innovations.

The strategy, launched in Nairobi on Tuesday, places the bioeconomy at the centre of Kenya’s broader economic transformation agenda, linking agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare, energy, biotechnology and research.

Mudavadi said the country could no longer afford to treat its biological resources simply as commodities for extraction and export.

📌 What You Need to Know

“Our mission must be to increase domestic value addition, develop competitive bio-based products and industries, commercialize innovations and support enterprises that are capable of competing successfully in regional and global markets,” he said.

The government is betting on the strategy to help tackle some of the country’s most persistent economic challenges, including youth unemployment, exposure to external trade shocks, climate change and low levels of value addition in key sectors.

Mudavadi said Kenya’s advantage lay not only in the biological resources it possesses, but in its ability to apply science, technology and innovation to create higher-value products and businesses.

“The Bio economy gives us an important opportunity to take the biological resources that Kenya possesses in abundance and transform them into higher value products, enterprises, industries, and jobs through science, research, technology, and innovation,” he said.

The strategy also seeks to create a stronger link between research institutions, universities, innovators and industry, addressing a long-standing challenge in which promising scientific ideas struggle to move from laboratories into commercially viable enterprises.

Mudavadi said the success of the strategy would therefore be judged by the businesses created, investments mobilised, innovations commercialised and jobs generated rather than by the policy document itself.

📰 Source: Capital FM Kenya