Understanding how, why, and whether the trade-offs and tensions around simultaneous implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals are resolved both sustainably and equitably requires an appreciation of power relations across multiple scales of governance. We explore the politics and political economy of how the nexus around food, energy, and water is being governed through initiatives to promote climate-smart agriculture (CSA) as it moves from the global to the local. We combine an analysis of how these interrelationships are being governed (and ungoverned) by key global institutions with reflection on the consequences of this for developing countries that are being targeted by CSA initiatives. In particular, we look at Kenya as a country heavily dependent on agriculture, but also subject to some of the worst effects of climate change and which has been a focus for a range of bilateral and multilateral donors with their preferred visions of CSA. We draw on strands of literature in global environmental politics, political ecology, and the political economy of development to make sense of the power dynamics that characterize the multiscalar politics of how CSA is translated, domesticated, and operationalized in practice.We currently lack global governance institutions and processes in the area of food and agriculture capable of addressing the interrelationships between the global food system, on one hand, and environmental challenges around water, energy, and climate change, on the other. Instead, fragmentation persists across institutions and agencies with responsibility for these areas, despite growing acknowledgment of the complex interlinkages that characterize the nexus around water, energy, and food (WEF) in particular. The urgency of addressing these issues is underscored by the recognition that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) cannot be achieved in isolation from one another. To simultaneously and effectively achieve goals 2 (hunger), 6 (water), 7 (energy), 13 (climate change), and 15 (life on land) presupposes an institutional capacity and willingness to act on and govern those relationships in more integrated ways across all levels of governance from the local to the global, crossing scales and sectors (United Nations Environment Programme 2007).