The Tana River supplies 95 percent of the water for Nairobi’s 4 million residents, and for another 5 million people living in the watershed. It also feeds one of the country’s most important agricultural areas and provides half of the country’s hydropower output. The Upper Tana-Nairobi Water Fund (UTNWF) is a public-private partnership that was established to address complex challenges in the critical Tana river catchment system including the impacts of climate change and unsustainable farming practices.

The primary goal of the UTNWF Trust is to help protect and restore the quality and supply of water to one of Kenya’s most productive and economically important regions. The fund’s business case study showed that a $10 million USD investment in water fund-led conservation interventions is likely to return $21.5 million USD in economic benefits over a 30-year timeframe.