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| Sunday, 05 September 2010 |
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Sustainable Poverty Reduction |
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Sustainable Poverty Reduction among Coastal Communities through the creation of viable Agro-Industry Alternatives
End of Project Report
Submitted to
Heinrich Boll Foundation
Background
This is an end of project report in respect of our project “Sustainable poverty reduction among coastal communities through creation of viable agro-industry alternatives”. The report covers the project period between April 2003 to March 2004 and it highlights the key signposts of the project’s development. A critical analysis of the results achieved by the project thus far is presented against the background of Kenya’s political development and status. The aim here is to relate the program’s goals with the political, economic, socio-cultural and environmental frameworks that affect it. The report also highlights the major challenges faced during implementation and the measures taken to mitigate against these challenges. Finally the report suggests a way forward on issues of sustainability and scaling up of the project.
About Ujamaa Center
Ujamaa Center is a non-governmental organisation, not-for-profit, registered in Kenya. Founded in 2001, the Center is an experiment in volunteerism and the construction of alternative systems to the dominant mainstream ideologies. The Center seeks people who are most marginalized and are disturbed by the character of mainstream processes that eludes the comprehension of most people. The Center’s main goal is to support basic community efforts in order to build a self-sustaining alternative sector in Kenya and to raise the competence of community institutions and their representatives. This project with HBF has been part of the Center’s efforts to experiment with development that seeks to respond to the call of sustainability if the state of poverty in the coast is to change. The project looked out for the poor who directly depend on the natural capital for their survival to drive the process by putting to use their creative capabilities in the solutions that are developed.
The Sustainable Poverty Reduction Project on which we report here is the Center’s pioneer project in its broad programme on building social capital. This fits very well with the Center’s other programme on Capacity Building for Community Control of Natural Livelihood Resources in the Coast Region whose aim is to spearhead vibrant village advocacy around natural resources in Kwale and Kilifi Districts that would effect the greatest change in the lives of communities and their organisations in the region. Both of these projects are founded on the Center’s strategic aim of causing the realisation of relationships, which capitalise on the use of alternative systems and spirituality in order to build social capital. The Center’s secretariat is based in Nyali in Mombasa and was until January 2004 staffed by only the Project Coordinator with support from volunteers. Today the Center has a staff of 4 in the office and 30 Community Mobilisers in the field. The Center is part of a fledgling human rights sector in the Coast of Kenya that has taken the view that there will be development only if communities secure and assert their rights, change power relations and secure ownership and title to land and other natural resources.
THE PROJECT
Project Rationale
The coastal region is one of Kenya’s most important centre of trade, but one dominated by “foreigners” (including those from upcountry Kenya). Indigenous coastal peoples have in the past – and are still today – characterized as being lazy and unproductive, incapable of making the most of the resources around them. This has its basis in the political-administrative system imposed on the coastal region at various times in the last two centuries, which reinforced the dominance of outsiders. For reasons that absentee landlords own most of the land agricultural activities are in most cases only temporary making substantial areas in the Coast pass as idle. Added to the fact that the region is semi-arid local people do not have control over most of their resources. The coral reefs, lowland and forests, coconut, cashew nut, mangrove forests, fishery, beach etc are either spectacularly underutilized or brazenly extracted to the benefit of private outsiders.
This background underlies the poverty reduction project’s effort to develop the productive potential of the poor first by improving their access to resources and to markets and enabling them to access training in practice oriented vocational activities. The poor need entrepreneurial capacity so that they have a steady flow of incomes for their basic needs. The government of Kenya, which subscribes to the Millennium Development Goals, is also committed to ensuring that the PRSP postulations are met in partnership with the communities, the private sector and the civil society.
The project was thus conceived as an effort in supporting sustainable poverty reduction at the community level. The underlying principles were that;
a) Although the poor and marginalized are often considered naïve and inexperienced, provided with space, right advice and support, they have the will power and ability to achieve concrete results, and that if society, in particular local communities, seized the opportunity to appropriately use energy and drive of local population at the grassroots level, greater progress toward sustainable development and poverty reduction could be achieved at a lesser cost;
b) Sustainable poverty reduction cannot happen unless the needs of the least advantaged members of society are met, especially women and youth;
c) Strong and socially sustainable institutions founded on the principles of collective action are a pre-requisite for poverty reduction;
d) A common property framework, as opposed to open access is necessary as it recognizes poor people as stakeholders and provides an institutional framework for resource management;
e) Support is needed for ecologically based technology that require less inputs of fossil fuels and manufactured capital by taking advantage of the self-organizing properties of ecosystems and assets of the poor, such as their labour and knowledge of their environment, and for the development of institutions for collective action;
f) International organizations have an important role to play by establishing a base of common knowledge as a catalyst for social action, enhancing communications between groups, and strengthening community based social organizations;
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