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The African Institute of Development Policy (AFIDEP), led by Director of Public Policy and Knowledge Translation, and Head of Kenya Office, Dr. Rose Oronje paid a courtesy call to the National Council for Population and Development (NCPD) Director-General, Dr. Mohamed Sheikh on 1 February 2022 at the council’s offices in Nairobi, Kenya. The meeting aimed to discuss areas of collaboration between the two institutions with the common objective of achieving policy impact in population, environment and development.

Speaking during the meeting, Dr. Sheikh thanked AFIDEP for the visit, noting that the two institutions had a long history of fruitful collaborations in the areas of population and evidence-informed decision-making (EIDM).

In their presentation, NCPD highlighted their major responsibility in coordinating the implementation of population and development activities in Kenya as well as working with other institutions in integrating population in their various programs including county governments. The presentation highlighted NCPD’s strategic areas of focus in Research and Policy Analysis, Program Coordination and Advisory as well as Advocacy and Public Education.

Dr. Bernard Onyango, Senior Research and Policy Analyst at AFIDEP shared a presentation about the Building Capacity for Integrated Family Planning/Reproductive Health and Population, Environment and Development Action (BUILD) project that focused on the project goals and the workstreams. Some of the areas that were identified for possible collaboration included capacity building, review of advisory papers, development of Population, Environment and Development (PED) guidelines and placement of PED fellows among others.

Dr. Sheikh further noted that the AFIDEP/NCPD collaboration was opportune as Kenya was in the process of developing the 4^th Medium Term Plan (MTP4), providing an opportunity for the review of policies and strategy documents that will ensure population issues are integrated in upcoming country and county development plans.