Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja has taken his ambitious “green city” vision to the global stage, leveraging the 2025 United Nations General Assembly sideline engagements in New York to secure partnerships with global urban leaders.
To advance this agenda he met with Ambassador Eric Garcetti — former Mayor of Los Angeles and now U.S. Ambassador for Global Climate Diplomacy under C40 Cities. The meeting marks a significant stride for Nairobi, positioning it within the global smart cities discourse and signaling the governor’s intention to benchmark against metropolitan giants.
Nairobi Meets Los Angeles: Shared Challenges, Shared Solutions
Los Angeles, like Nairobi, is a sprawling metropolis grappling with climate change, rapid urbanization, traffic congestion, and waste management challenges. Garcetti’s record as mayor includes pushing for renewable energy, extensive public transport upgrades, and air-quality policies — experiences that Sakaja hopes to adapt to Nairobi’s unique context.
The discussions, sources say, centered on how cities can co-learn, especially in green infrastructure, technology-driven governance, and resilience-building against climate shocks. For Nairobi, which faces mounting pollution, flooding, and deteriorating urban planning, the partnership offers not just knowledge exchange but potential access to international climate financing streams.
The “Green Army”: Sakaja’s Local Force for Change
Back home, Sakaja has deployed what he calls the “Green Army” — a 3,000-strong workforce charged with environmental clean-up, beautification, and greening initiatives across the capital. Unlike past short-lived clean-up projects, the governor emphasizes that this force has been legally entrenched through a county assembly bill, with structured salaries and allowances.
“This is not another cosmetic initiative,” Sakaja insists. “We are giving our youth real jobs, dignity, and a stake in keeping Nairobi green and livable.”
Analysts, however, remain cautious. Past beautification drives in Nairobi, from the Moi-era “City in the Sun” campaigns to the Sonko-era “Operation Slay Garbage,” collapsed under poor sustainability and corruption. Sakaja’s model — which ties environmental jobs to formal county structures — will be tested on whether it avoids these historical pitfalls.
Tech Diplomacy and Global Networks
The Nairobi delegation also held talks with Ambassador Philip Thigo, Kenya’s Special Envoy on Technology, underscoring Sakaja’s interest in embedding digital tools into urban management. Smart city technologies — such as real-time traffic monitoring, digital waste tracking, and automated revenue collection — are seen as critical in tackling Nairobi’s chronic service delivery gaps.
Coupled with President William Ruto’s emphasis on climate-smart development at the UNGA, Sakaja’s overtures align Nairobi’s growth with global climate diplomacy while strengthening the city’s bargaining power for multilateral support.
Urban experts argue that cities, not national governments, are increasingly the frontline actors in climate action. Nairobi, with its ballooning population of over 5 million and sprawling informal settlements, is both a hotspot of vulnerability and an opportunity hub.
“If Sakaja can successfully anchor Nairobi in global city networks like C40, he stands to unlock not just technical expertise but climate finance worth billions,” says urban planner Dr. Jane Wanjiru. “But he will need to show results at home — cleaner streets, reduced emissions, functional drainage — to maintain credibility.”
For now, Sakaja’s international engagements offer Nairobians a glimpse of ambition: a governor thinking beyond patchwork fixes to positioning the capital as a smart, sustainable city. The challenge, however, lies in translating high-level agreements and photo-op diplomacy into tangible improvements in waste collection, water supply, transport, and air quality.
If successful, the governor may just restore Nairobi’s long-faded reputation as the “Green City in the Sun.” If not, the Green Army risks becoming another footnote in the city’s long history of failed beautification drives.
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