Community Development in Mbeere

Martin Walsh

School of African and Asian StudiesUniversiw of Sussex

April1994

draft working paperprepared for the ODA ESCOR-funded project

Rural Livelihood Systems and Fann/1,{on-farm Linkages inLower Embq Kenya, 19721 to 1992-3

(Research Scheme R4816)

Community Development in Mbeere

Contents:

1 The Roots of Community Development

1.1 A Brief History of Community Development

1.2 Community Development in Kenya

1,2.1 Community Development in the Colonial Period

1.2.2 Harambee and Community Development

2 Community Devclopment in Mbeere

2.1 The Changing Role of the State?

2.1.1 Technical Interventions and Aid Projects

2.1.2 The Institutionalisation of Community Development

2.1.2.1 The District Focus for Rural Development

2.1.2.2 Political Asendas

2.1.2.3 The Emperor's New Clothes

2.2 Grassroots Initiatives

2.2.1 Womcn's Groups

2.2.2 Rotating Savings and Credit Associations

2.2.3 Schools and Churches

2.3 The Role of NGOs

3 Conclusions

Bibliography

Community Development in Mbeere

I The Roots of Community Developmcnt

In the past decade the twin concepts of community development and local participation in

the planning process have become essential components of state-(donor and recipient)-

sponsored development plans and proposals in sub-Saharan Africa. This is evident, for

example, in recent (1992) proposals for the provision ofBritish aid to strengthen

development planning and implementation capacity in Embu, Meru and Tharaka-Nithi

Districts. The terms of reference drawn up by the British Overseas Development

Administration (ODA) for the consultancy to prepare these proposals specified that they

"...will be made in the context ofa process-project with participatory planning as a key

objective", while a whole annex ofthe resulting report was devoted to the subject of

community development (ODI 1992).

1.1 A Brief Ilistory of Community Development

This ernphasis on community development is, as we shall see, equally prominent in the

development strategy drawn up by the Kenyan govemment. Despite its apparent novelty,

it has a long pedigree dating back to the years following the second world war, in Kenya

as well as elsewhere in the developing world. The history of community development as a

development policy provides important insights into current practice and suggests a

number oflessons which contemporary development practitioners would do well to take

note of It also sets the scene for an examination of community development in Mbeere,

its effectiveness to date and the potential for the future.

In a recent review of the community-based approach to natural resource management,

Hassett (1994: 7) argues that community development in general has evolved from the

merging of two distinct traditions of rural development . The first of these is the tradition

of "grassroots" development pursued by non-government organisations (NGOs) and

churches throughout Afric4 Asia and Latin America. The second is the tradition of state

management ofrural development, involving "penetration" by state agencies (including the

administrative apparatus and representatives of govemment ministries and departments)

into rural areas in order to imolement national Dolicies.

An early attempt to merge the grassroots approach with state management was the

Community Development Programme in lndia" initiated by the newly-independent state in

the early 1950s. As Hassett remarks, despite its populist rhetoric this ended up mainly as

a "top-down" programme of agricultural extension in which the views of ordinary farmers

were not well represented (1994: 8). Nonetheless "community development" initiatives

were started in many colonial and independent countries around this time. The emphasis

was very much on extension and training, particularly in agriculture, though often with

even less effect than in the Indian case. In the 1960s the community development

approach gave way to the development project as a vehicle for overseas aid and

investment, and the rise of the developrnent planning industry. "Whereas", Hassett writes,

"'community development' had been based on a moral critique ofthe social and

institutional bases of rural poverty, economic planning treated poverty as a technical

problem, which could be solved by the application of scientific techniques. The

development plans ofthe 1960s and 1970s were almost universally strongly centralised

and relied on 'experts', often expatriates, to determine people's needs on their behalf'

(1994: 8).

Meanwhile, an altemative tradition was being developed in the NGO sector, through the

community work of radical actMsts in Latin America. This tradition was theorised and

widely popularised in the writings ofPaulo Freire (1972). During the 1970s the Freirean

thought, with its stress upon "conscientisation" and "empowerment", had a significant

impact upon the practice of NGOs, especially those working in Asia, and saw the

emergence of many local NGOs with a concem to eliminate poverty and its corollaries.

Many NGOs began to use local staf and fieldworkers to encourage communities or

groups ofthe rural poor to start their own small enterprises and development activities,

and to develop their own management experience and capacities so that they would not be

permanently dependent on extemal aid.

The quiet success ofthese "grassroots" initiatives contrasted markedly with the failure of

many large-scale state-sponsored and donor-funded projects. As Hassett notes (1994. 9-

l0), development practitioners increasingly questioned the design and philosophy behind

such projects. They were criticised for their over-emphasis on technological solutions to

problems (the quick "technical fix") and corresponding disregard for the development of

human resources; for the way in which they were planned, by professional planners with

little knowledge of local conditions and with a minimum of consultation with the people

(including the "beneficiaries") who were likely to be most directly affected; and for the

inflexibility oftheir implernentation (their use ofa "blueprint" rather than "process"

approach). In the course ofthe 1980s this led to a growing interest on the part of state

agencies (both donors and recipients of aid) in the social dimensions of development, in

institutional and organisational development, and in participatory and process planning as

a means to sustainable development: in other words to a renewed interest in community

development, as developed in intervening years by the NGOs. This, "the return to

community development" (Shepherd 1992, cited in Hassett 1994: 10), has, in the terms of

Hassett's analysis, completed the merger ofthe traditions of grassroots development and

state management.

While this account ofthe history of community development is reasonably accurate in

outline, it does encode a significant bias. It is written from the perspective of current

orthodoxy, which offers unqualified support for the integration of a participatory,

community development perspective into developnrent plans and programmes. It is

possible, however, to take a more cynical view, and remember the lessons ofthe

Community Development Programme in India. In this and other cases the merger of the

two traditions of development identified by Hassett might be better described as the

appropriation ofone (grassroots action and representation) by the other (the state), where

the state adopted the rhetoric of popular participation but continued to manage

development in traditional authoritarian fashion. An examination ofthe history of

community participation in Kenya provides some support for this sceptical position, and

suggests that the cunent enthusiasm for comrnunity development and the way in which it

is construed and put into practice should be subject to more critical scrutiny than it usually

is.

1.2 Community Development in Kenya

1.2.1 Community Development in the Colonial Period

Community development as a policy was originally introduced into Kenya by the British

colonial administration. It made its first appearance in a document sent to all the colonies

in November 1948 by the British Colonial Secretary and subsequently referred to by his

name, as the "Creech Jones circular". The introduction ofthis new policy - also referred

to at times as 'mass education' and 'social development' - represented a reinterpretation of

colonial indirect rule as a d1'namic rather than static policy (shades ofblueprint and

process!) responding to change and the demand for development in the colonies. It was

located within the overall stated objective of guiding colonies to eventual "self-

government".

According to Hill (1991: 23), from whom this account is drawn, the British government

had a very definite set of political objectives in mind: "The Community Development

policy was designed in part to meet criticism of colonial rule by liberal lobbies in the

colonial centre, but without putting colonial interests in jeopardy; in part it was also

intended to defuse opposition by nationalist groups in the colonies which were calling for

political independence." This is a far cry from the "moral critique ofthe social and

institutional bases of rural poverty" referred to by Hassett, and it is tempting to see similar

agendas at work in conternporary manifestations ofthe policy. Certainly community

development has become intimately linked in some contexts with the post-Cold War

concepts of"good governance" and "democratisation" being touted by the westem powers

with their new found political morality and foisted upon their former allies in the

developing world.

The Kenyan govemment also has its political agendas, not least ofwhich are the need to

satisry local aspirations and, like its colonial predecessor, defuse political opposition. It

also has an interest in formulating policies which are consonant with the wishes of its

donors, and are more likely to attract their aid. Community development helps to achi€ve

all of these objectives. But here we are jumping ahead of our argument : let us return to

discussion ofthe colonial origins of community development.

The implernentation of the new community development policy was slow and undramatic,

and hindered in many areas by the outbreak ofthe Mau Mau uprising and the declaration

ofa State ofEmergency in 1952. At first community development was added to the tasks

of District Officers: later on it became the responsibility of newly-appointed District

Community Development Officers. In some districts Africans subsequently took over

these positions from British colonial ofEcers. They did so as Assistant Administrative

Officers, the most senior post to which Africans were admitted, their salaries paid by

District Councils rather than central sovernment.

These officers put the new policy into practice in a number ofways. This included the

organisation oflocation Councils, women's clubs, ex-servicemen's associations and sports

activities. Most important was the new emphasis upon 'self-help projects' According to

Hill, however, these appear to have been largely communal labour under a new name:

"They were unpaid, organized by chiefs, approved and sometimes contributed to by

District or Local Councils. The work centred on building primary schools, earth dams

(water reservoirs) and water catchments, maintaining or extending local roads, and soil

conservation work. Several ofthe projects were probably inefficient in their use of

manpower owing to poor organization, lack of co-ordination and deficiencies oftechnical

support" (1991:26). As a result they continued to face criticism from local actMsts and

nationalist politicians. As Hill remarks, "The reality of much community

development.. .was far from the notion of self-help as being based on voluntarism, popular

participation and local decision-making. Community Development philosophy in the

colonial world ofthe 1950s appeared to allow under this rubric any development activity

invoMng the community as a whole which was judged by the authorities to be to its

benefit" (1991:26-27).

It is not difficult to draw parallels between community development in the late colonial

period and its current manifestations. Some of these parallels are based upon real

continuities of policy and practice, others reflect broad similarities in intentions and

outlook. Hill's accouat of colonial community development initiatives in Kitui District and

elsewhere points to a number oflocal experiments which are interesting from this point of

view. One District Commissioner in Kitui formed a District Dwelopment Team of

department heads to establish a district development strategy - an early attempt at

integated local planning. The team adopted a plan for each location to build an

elementary school and a dispensary, and set a target offifty dams a year to be built in the

district. This plan entailed a considerable input ofcompulsory labour and was met with

demands from the Kenya African Union that the work be paid These demands were

ignored and the work went on until the targets were largely achieved. At the same time

the colonial agthorities were able to congfatulate themselves on the fact that such projects

kept their subjects busy and left them with little time to indulge in politics (Hill I 991 : 27-

28).

Despite the apparent success of some projects, it was evident that their negative impact

upon local perceptions ofthe administration and its development efforts demanded a more

sensitive approach. One early pointer in this direction was provided by research

undertaken in 1949 in South Nyanza District by Philip Mayer, an anthropologist employed

bythe colonial administration. In his published report (1951), Mayer recommended that

instead of compulsion or even demonstration techniques, much village improvement, and

especially agricultural modernisation, could be undertaken by utilising traditional work

party institutions. In 1953 Machakos District was chosen for an experimental project

conducted along the lines which Mayer had suggested for South Nyanza. This project

was headed by an African Administrative Officer, John Malinda, and involved using

traditional Kamba work parties, the neighbourho od myetlrya (singtlu muethya), as lhe

basis ofnew community development groups - the object being to get round hatred ofthe

existing forced communal labour system. Local elected committees ofthe new myethya

took decisions on what projects to undertake and how to undertake them and ensure the

compliance of group members. The Machako s myethya undeftook a wide range oftasks

including building schools, soil conservation measures (especially terracing), making farm

boundaries (on newly registered land), constructing dams and other forms of water supply

and storage (for livestock and domestic use), clearing local roads and paths, and building

new houses. In the late 1950s the Machakos project became something of a showpiece,

and the work party model of community development appears to have been subsequently

adopted by district officials in many other parts of Kenya (Hill 1991: 31-35).

As Hill argues, the Machakos project served a number of purposes. Large parts of

Machakos District were seriously eroded, and attempts by the administration to reduce

livestock holdings in the area had failed miserably. There was some risk that the Kamba

might join the Mau Mau rebellioq and it was recognised that their economic aspirations

would have to be met in definite ways. The Machakos project provided an ideal

opportunity to do so, and it owed much of its success to the fact that it was designed and

headed by a local Kamba official, who phrased the project as a reform of communal labour

in the direction of local organisation and decision-making. Needless to say, the new

myethya system did not meet with universal approval, and some areas it was still

associated with compulsory labour and attacked by nationalists for this reason Qlill I 99 I :

35-38). In spite this criticism, the myethya, along with other innovations made by the

colonial administration in the name of community development, were to provide potent

models for sovemments in the post-colonial era.

1.2.2 Harambee and Community Development

Although this fact is not widely advertised, the colonial poliry and practice of community

development formed the basis for many developments after Kenya's independence in 1963.

The idea of community development, and the participation of all Katyans in that

development, was enshrined in the new national slogan of "Harambee" (derived from a

Swahili work-gang cry and usually translated into English as "Let's pull together!"). Since

@resident-to-be) Kenyatta's first formal use ofthe term in 1963, Harambee has been the

motto on the Kenyan national crest and the customary rallying-cry at political and other

rallies and meetings. The central message of Harambee was self-reliance, and this was

expressed most concretely in the rural self-help movement. As a political slogan and the

catchword for an ideology, Harambee was explicitly meant to contrast with colonial state

control and its manifestation in forced communal labour. In practice, however, it meant

the continuation of many ofthe same kinds of interventio4 the adapted tnwethya system

and its analogues writ large and legitimised by the new nationalist (and therefore

unopposable) ideology. The rhetoric was - and still is - different, but the methods remain

remarkably similar, if much more refined.

The self-help movement was co-ordinated and monitored by a new Ministry of

Community Development and Social Services. In the first two decades of independence

this achieved much more than its colonial progenitors could ever have imagined.

Thousands of primary schools and hundreds of secondary schools (known as Tlarambee

Schools') were built with substantial contributions of money and labour from local

communities. Likewise many other kinds of local amenity were constructed with

Harambee contributions and labour: health facilities, unmetalled roads, improved water

supplies and cattle dips to name but a few. For a time in the 1970s rural development in

Kenya seemed to be synonymous with the Harambee movement, much as 'Ujamaa" and

l 0

rural socialism defined the policy and practices of development in Nyerere's Tanzania. It

has been estimated that self-help projects accounted for roughly 30% of all rural capital

formation, and, between 1967 and 1973, 11 .4yo of national development expenditures

(Gachuki 1982; Holmquist 1982). The economic contribution ofthe state, however, was

minimal: in 1979, for example, only one percent ofKenya's capital development budget

was devoted to self-help projects @arkan et dl. 1979, cited, together with the above

references, in McCormack el al. 1986:47).

Despite its early successes, by the mid-1980s there were signs that the Harambee

movement was running out of steam. "Harambee!" as a national slogan had been diluted

by President Moi's addition of "Nyayol" (meaning "footstepsl"), a reference to his

intention to follow in the footsteps ofKenyatta" whom he succeeded in 1978. The

Ministry of Community Development and Social Services had long since become the

Ministry of Culture and Social Services, with responsibility flor community development

falling to one department within it, the Department of Social Services. The term

community development itself was dropped, and the Department's Community

Development Assistants, working at locational level and still paid by their local district

councils, became Social Development Assistants. Harambee had become the common

name for any collective fund-raising event, for whatever purpose, and the financial

exactions of chiefs and their assistants in the name of Harambee were widely resented,

much as communal labour had been resented in the colonial period. Now, however,

resentment was not directed at foreign ovemrle, but at the widespread systern of

comrption which had become endemic within local administration. To many people

Hararnbee had become a tax imposed by the rich upon the poor, a far cry from its original

purpose.

u

The last major resort of the self-help progr,unme was in the women's gtoup movement,

co-ordinated by the Department of Social Services and monitored by the Women's Bureau

within the ministry. This will be discussed at length below. Otherwise, asBarkan et al.

(1979:23') noted, self-help was skewed towards the provision of social services for the

members of rural communities. Except among women's groups, little emphasis was placed

upon increasing rural productioq and the earlier (colonial) link between self-help and

agricultural development was largely lost . The apparent demise of self-help and

community development as an aspect of development policy was matched, however, by

the rise of larger, donor-assisted projects which required minimum local participation and,

in many cases, also involved a minimum of consultation with the local beneficiaries - if

indeed the beneficiaries were meant to be local people. From the point ofview of some

politicians and ofEcials this shift certainly paid better: there was now a lot more money to

be made out oflarge aid projects - the larger the better - than local communities which had

already been milked dry by local officials. Investment and experimentation in community

development initiatives were left largely to the NGOs and churches, whose activities will

also be examined below.

This change of emphasis corresponds, in part, to the transition identified by Hassett (1994,

and discussed in section 1 . I above) from a community development approach to the more

explicit management of development by the state through large-scale aid projects. The

difference, in Kenya at least, is that community development itselfhas always been

managed by the state as a policy and practice which stems from a variety of motives, both

transparent and opaque, economic and political.

12

2 Community Development in Mbeere

The rest ofthis paper is devoted to an examination of community development in Mbeere,

and looks in detail at the role ofthe state, grassroots initiatives, and the role ofNGOs.

2.1 The Changing Role of the State?

Despite the rhetoric of Harambee, development in Mbeere, as elsewhere in independent

Kenya, has largely been construed as the responsibility ofthe state, assisted, where

necessary, by external donors. This section examines the nature ofthe state's role, and

asks whether or not this role is really changing - in the direction of increasing

decentralisation and community participation in development planning - as set out in

policy documents and prescribed by Kenya's international donors, the British ODA

included. According to Hassett's general history of community development, outlined

above (section 1.1), community-based approaches are now merging with the hitherto

dominant tradition of state management and intervention, offering new promise for

equitable and sustainable dwelopment. Is this the case in Kenya" and in Mbeere in

particular?

2.1.1 Technical IntelTentions and Aid Projects

The primary role of the public sector in the development of Mbeere over the past two

decades has been directive. The government, acting mainly through its different

ministrieS. has fostered numefous technical interventions, some of them in the form of

projects sponsored by international donors and implemented with the help of external

13

organisations and expatriate staff. Some of these projects, especially those designed to

improve the basic infrastructure and related services, have had a tremendous impact

upon Mbeere. Almost every aspect of life has been affected by the construction of

roads, bridges, dams, schools, clinics, and the provision of electricity, telephone

services, and improved water supplies - to mention just some of the more obvious

developments. Indeed 'development', in Mbeere as elsewhere, has become largely

synonymous with such interventions.

Riley and Brokensha (1988'. 270-278,297-299) provide an overview of state-directed

interventions in Mbeere which is consistent with our own observations and more

general critiques of this "top-down" approach to development. Despite the obvious

chenges in qudrty of life and some positive impacts upon the local economy, the

benefrts have been unevenly spread across Mbeere (with greater advantages often

accruing, as might be expected, to the higher potential zones), nxrny interventions have

failed or had negative impacts, and the overall return to development investments made

by the govemment and its donors has been poor (imagining that such a balance sheet

could be drawn up, which of course it cannot, except in notional terms) '

Many interventions have be€n made in piecemeal fashion, following the policies and

progilmmes of the different ministries and agencies working in Mbeere, including the

ministries and departments responsible for agriculture, livestock, public works, water

development, health, and education (the names and departmental composition of these

ministries have changed on numerous occasions over the years, usually in response to

political manoeuvres and reshuffles). Other interventions have been co-ordinated, to a

great€r or lesser degree, as part of wider programmes. One of the most important of

these was the Special Rural Development hogramme (SRDP). In 1970 Mbeere was

chosen as one of six administrative divisions in Kenya to take paft in the SRDP' a

t4

nation-wide integrated development progrirmme which was to plry an important role in

promoting the institutionalisation of the state-managed, donor-funded, model of

development in Kenya (compare Riley and Brokensha's observation that the SRDP in

particular had "unintentionally induced a strong sense of dependency, of reliance on

government to provide everything" (1988: 146). The SRDP in Mbeere was financed

by NORAD, the Norwegian govemment development agency, which spent some Kshs

17 million in the period from 1970, when the programme was inaugurated, through to

1977. NORAD also provided technical assistance of different kinds as part of the

programme.

The main aims of the SRDP were to increase agricultural ouput, reduce rural

unemployment, improve agriculnral extension and social services, encourage

decentralisation at divisional level, and to test the replicability of this programme. As

RJley and Brokensha observe, these aims were not met, and five main constraints were

subsequently identified: lack of credit, shortage of farm inputs, difficulties of

communication, shortage of waGr, and limited extension facilities. To these Riley and

Brokensha add another, more general, constraint: failure adequately to understand the

existing system of agriculture (1988:- nG271).

The SRDP's main emphasis in agriculture was on increasing the production of selected

cash crops: cotton, Mexican 142 beans, tobacco, castor, and, as a famine reserve,

Katumani maize. However, insufFrcient consideration was given to the various

constraints referred to above, and above all to existing production practices and patterns

of resource allocation at the household level. Where some of these crops have since

been more widely adopted, it has largely been because of the removal of some of these

constraints and the development of reliable markets (for example by B.A.T., British

American Tobacco). rather than as a direct result of the SRDP and its extension efforts.

l 5

Otherwise agricultural production in Mbeere, and especially in the lower and more arid

zones, is geared more to coping with this environment and the ever-present threat of

drought than to producing for the market. The outcome of farmers' risk-aversion

strategies is considerable diversity of crop choice, and not the tendency towards the

monoculture of cash crops found in more high potential areas.

O,ther aspects of the SRDP also met with limited success. One of these was the atempt

to improve water supplies by means of a complex network of plpes. In Riley and

Brokensha's judgement 'this project has never worked properly. Water is often not

available at the stand-pipes because the PVC...pipes have been broken, or damaged by

road machinery, or there is no diesel or no spares for the pump, or the intake on the

Ena river is silted or broken" (1988: 299). Similar assessments can be made of other

SRDP interventions, as well as tlose undertaken in the framework of other and more

recent development projects. This does not mean that development, understood in

terms of improved technology and infrastrucfure, and greater access to services, has not

taken place. As indicated at the start of this section it very clearly has. One of the

most successfrrl components of the SRDP was the construction of new roads and

improvement of existing ones, leaving Mbeere with an unusually good network of

mainly all-weather roads. The nation-wide Rural Access Roads Programme of the

1980s saw the construction of 210 km of roads and significantly increased access to

markets in remote areas of Mbeere, while the construction of a tarmac road running

from Kiambere through Kamburu and Kiritiri to Embu in the mid-1980s has had a

considerable impact on the economy of the whole of southern Mbeere and (what is

now) Gachoka Division (this road being a spin-off from the construction of Kiambere

Dam, which also displaced many people and provided employment for others in

Mbeere).

l o

Other wide-ranging interventions have had similarly mixed rezults in Mbeere. These

include the government's programme of land reform and registration of individual

freehold title, whose far reaching effects we have described elsewhere, and the various

interventions made by the British/ODA-funded EMI ASAL Programme, which will be

discussed below. It would not be difficult to generate a catalogue of project successes

and failures, though we do not intend to do so here. It is perhaps more important to

consider the wider implications of the top-down, project-oriented, approach to

development. This approach has become so well integrated into development practice

that it is often to difficult to assess it from any other framework than the one which its

own practices and practitioners provide. While it is tempting to view development

solely in terms of projects and interventions, evaluated by their technical, economic and

social impacts, the current emphasis upon community development invites us to take a

wider perspective; wider, even, than the normal definition of community development

and participation would allow. We attempt to do this in the sections which follow.

2.1,2 T\e Institutionalisation of Communit5r Development

In the first part of this paper (section 1.2 above) we saw how community development

in Kenya has, throughout its history, been subject to definition and manipulation by the

state. This history is rarely mentioned in the contemporary enthusiasm for community

development. According to current orthodoxy, this new emphasis upon local

participation in the development process has evolved in direct response to its former

absence and the widespread failure of projects which have not sufficiently involved the

communities they affect. However, knowledge of the past history of community

development, and the continuity of this with the present, might lead us to question the

orthodox account.

1 ' f

2.1.2.1 The District Focus for Rural Development

As noted above (in section 2.1.1), one ofthe aims ofthe SRDP in the 1970s was to

promote administrative decentralisation and integrated planning. This aspect of the SRDP

failed, primarily because ofthe lack of commitment of senior administrators in the sectoral

ministries to decentralised decision-making (ODI 1992: E.l). In the early 1980s,

however, the government embarked upon a new and apparently radical strategy designed

to shift the responsibility for planning and implementing rural development from the

headquarters of ministries to the districts. This is the policy known as the District Focus

for Rural Development', the title of the document (the so-called "Blue Book") in which it

is codified (first issued in 1982 and revised in 1987). The new policy became officially

ooerational in 1983.

The District Focus focuses upon the creation and operation ofa hierarchy ofDevelopment

Committees which is supposed to transmit development proposals upwards from sub-

locational to district level. In theory, then, development planning begins at the local level

in the Locational and SubJocational Development Committees (LDCs and SLDCs). As

stipulated in the District Focus tslue Book' (Republic of Kenya 1987) each SLDC is to be

chaired by the Assistant Chief and its members are to include the local KANU chairman,

councillors, departmental officers and headmasters of primary schools in the sub-

location. The core composition of the LDC is basically the same, except at a higher

level. It is chaired by the Chief of the location and its members are to include the

relevant Assistant Chiefs, the KANU locational chairman, councillors, departmental

officers, local representatives of parastatals and headmasters of secondary schools in the

area. Both LDCs and SLDCs are also to include coopted local leaders and

representatives of cooperatives, NGOs and self-help groups. The'Blue Book'further

1 8

states that women's organisations must be adequately represented in the LDCs and

SLDCS.

Development proposals are, in theory, passed up from the SLDCs and LDCs and vetted

at each step, through the similarly constituted Divisional Development Committees

(DvDCs) and on to the District Development Committee (DDC). The DDC is the most

important ofthe institutions through which the District Focus strategy is applied. It is a

large body chaired by the District Commissioner, with the District Development Officer as

its secretary, and otherwise comprising all district heads of department, Members of

Parliament, district KANU chairmen, local authority chairmen, DvDC chairmen (who are

the District Officers), representatives of development-related parastatals, and the invited

representatives ofNGOs and self-help groups. The DDC meets quarterly and is assisted

by the District Executive Committee @EC), also chaired by the District Commissioner,

but limited in membership to government officials. The DEC in turn is served by the

District Planning Unit (DP[D, led by the Distria Development Officer and including the

District Statistical Officer and Assistant District Development Officers. One of the

principal tasks ofthese district-level bodies is to produce five-yearly District Development

Plans @DPs), linked to annual budgets by an annually updated District Annex: this is

supposed to provide both a work plan for the implementation ofthe DDP during the year

and details ofthe budgetary provision required (for a more detailed account see ODI

1992:8.5-6).

This looks all very well on paper, but does it work in practice? Although the District

Focus strategy had undoubtedly focused attention on the districts as planning and

administrative units, it has achieved relatively little in the way of decentralising

development planning. Gven the prevailing scarcity of public sector resources, the DDCs

have almost no firnds to disburse and therefore, as the ODI consultancy team notes,

1 9

districts "continue with routines of planning that are intended to influence line ministry

allocation offunds at district level (but barely do so) and to prepare district projects that

have very little hope of being funded" (1992: E 8). At the same time the relationship of

both local authorities and NGOs to the DDCs remains uneasy: their representation is

frequently limited and they often see the DDCs as attempting to control them and thereby

subvert their own, independent, mandates. This impression is confirmed by the fact that

the DDCs are almost wholly managed by the administration and other senior government

officials, both through the influence ofthe DECs and as a result oftheir own composition.

As a mechanism for participatory planning, the DDC system is seriously flawed: "Despite

the Blue Book's espousal ofparticipatory and bottom-up planning, the essence ofthe

system it describes is for requests to travel up the system, with decisions being transmitted

downwards... The implicit planning model is one of centralisation and control" (ODI 1992:

E 8 )

Even if the system did work in the opposite direction, tlere are no guarantees that it

would meet the participatory ideal. While the District Focus prescribes a mechanism

for community participation, it does not ensure that such participation will be a regular

and integral part of the planning process. LDC and SLDC members are left free to

decide how and when and who is coopted onto their committees. This leads to

considerable variation in practice, ranging from adequate to minimal community and

women's participation in the LDCs and SLDCs. To give but one example from

Mbeere: in 1992 Mbita SLDC had nine members including the Assisant Chief, but

none of these were women, although some of the men did represent a variety of

community interests. This SLDC only met irregularly at the request of its chairman,

and then it was, as one member described, to draw up requests for money which were

rarely granted.

As a result there is considerable dissatisfaction in some local communities with the

existing system, which relies heavily upon the character and actions of individual chiefs

in the absence of any formal mechanism for community representation or involvement.

The revised edition of the District Focus 'Blue Book' (Republic of Kenya 1987)

recognises that the LDCs and SLDCs are not sufficiently active in all districts. It

ascribes this to the fact that their personnel are not equipped with basic skills in project

planning, monitoring, and the preparation of detailed rninutes so that they can

communicate effectively with the DvDCs and DDCs. The suggested remedy is

appropriate training. However, in the absence of funds and with their requests

generally meeting no or only negative responses from above, it is unlikely that this

would remedy much (compare Walsh 1992: 3).

2.1.2.2 Political Agendas

The District Focus strategy and its implementation, indeed the development process as

a whole, is best understood in its wider political context (see Barkan and Chege 1989).

Different actors acting at different levels have different, sometimes conflicting, political

agendas, and we will not attempt to describe all of these here. A few main points can,

however, be made.

So far we have referred to the Kenyan state as a monolithic entity, and implied that

development planning is virtually the sole preserve of the government and ministries in

Nairobi. The reality is somewhat more complicated. Although political power is

wielded from the centre - by the President, his chief ministers, and other close

associates - the ethnic fragmentation of Kenya and the absence of a strong and all-

pervasive apparatus of coercion (Kenya is not a military state, nor does it rely heavily

2 1

upon a secret police force) has produced a much finer political balance. The key actors

in this balance are regional power-brokers, operating at district or wider level (as

determined by the ethnic composition and alliances in a particular region) to deliver

political support and legitimacy (most obviously in the form of votes) to the cenfe. In

return they are awarded posts of varying importance in the government - hence the

burgeoning number of ministries and parastatals in recent years - while they in turn are

expected by their local supporters (including other, intermediary, power-brokers) to

translate their influence into development projects and interventions in their home

regions.

This process is active tlroughout Kenya. It is evident, for example, in Meru District,

where the senior politician for many years has been known nation-wide as "the King of

Meru". It is also evident in Embu District, where power has likewise been brokered

for many years by a single politician, serving as a senior Minister in a succession of

different ministries until his retirement at the 1992 election. He has remained,

however, district KANU chairman, while his son, although a member of another party

(the Democratic Party, DP), has succeeded him as a Member of Parliament. His role

in bringing development to different pars of Embu District, including Mbeere (where

his family originally came from), is legendary: particular interventions being often

linked to whichever ministry he happened to be in charge of at the time. Stories of his

attempts, usually successfrrl, to frustrate the development initiatives of his rivals are

also legion. Development projects therefore become gifts in the hands of politicians,

gifts to their supporters in reward or return for their support.

This system provides the District Focus strategy with its political logic. From this

point of view the decentralisation of development planning, or at least some aspects of

it, to the districts was not primarily intended to foster community participation and

make the process more efFrcient, but was an attempt to rationalise the system in which

political power and development projects are regularly traded for one another. It is not

surprising, therefore, that the DDCs are the District Focus, that the lower levels in the

chain of committees (the so-called sub-DDCs) are largely ineffective, and community

participation in the whole process an empty promise.

The District Focus strategy also has other benefits for the government. The rhetoric of

decenhalisation and participation has attracted the attention and approval of Kenya's

donors, and to this extent made them more willing to provide financial assistance and

support than they might have done otherwise (especially in an era when the catchwords

are good-governance, democratisation and accountability). The ODA's funding of

consultancies to draw up proposals for District Support programmes in Isiolo

(separately) and Embu, Meru and Tharaka-Nithi Districts can be interpreted as one of

the preliminary fruits of this. The District Focus also provides the government with a

means of monitoring and to some extent controlling the development activities of

NGos. All through the 1980s the government expressed increasing concern about the

proliferation of NGOs and its lack of control over them, accusing some NGOs of

possessing political objectives in conflict with its own. This concern intensified during

the campaigl for a multi-party system - a campaign which directly involved a number

of church organisations - and generated a number of attempts to regulate and monitor

the NGO community, for example through the introduction of strict registration

requirements. The District Focus system gives the govemment an opporhrnity to

monitor and channel the activities of NGOs at district and local levels, though any

attempt at exercising greater control is ineviAbly undermined by the willingness of

local politicians and power-brokers to contract their own alliances with NGOs.

ZJ

2.1.2.3 The Emperor's New Clothes

Kenya's bilateral donors have a very different interest in the District Focus strategy and the

ways in which it is implemented. While aware of the fact that the system is subject to

political manipulation, the donor agencies tend to view this as a form ofunwarranted and

unwanted interference which detracts from the proper objectives ofthe strategy and

renders the system less efficient than it could be. These objectives are, of course, those

which are stated in the District Focus tslue Book' and other policy documents (see section

2.1-2.1 above), objectives which echo the overt purposes of colonial community

development policy- Just as there was more to colonial policy than was given public

expression, so the modern agencies carry their own political agendas, couched in the

rhetoric ofthe "New World Order". Their principal underlying objective is, arguably, to

recreate Kenya (and other countries like it) in our own image, so that the development

process can be controlled and markets opened up without the need for continued large and

(to us) economically inefficient pay-offs to national politicians and local power-brokers_

On this interpretation, then, the grand subtext of development policy is a struggle between

different interests, Kenyan versus intemational, for a greater slice ofthe economic cake.

The supreme irony ofthis situation is that both sides should dress their struggle in the

language of community development, when, if it takes place at all, such development is no

more than a by-product ofthe wider contest.

This is not to say that these are the conscious intentions of all or even most ofthe

individual actors involved. As a description ofthe outcome of individual actions it does,

however, provide an alternative to the orthodox account which accepts policy statements

at their face value. According to this account, which is particularly well articulated in the

donor community, the current fashion for community development and local participation

in the development process has evolved in response to the widespread failure of

technically-oriented aid projects which have paid relatively attention to the stated needs

and wishes ofthe people these projects affect, whether as beneficiaries or as the subjects

of other kinds of impact. This provides, for example, the stated rationale for recent

changes in the direction ofBritish aid (proposed as well as past) to Embu and

neighbouring districts. The rest ofthis section is devoted to a discussion ofthis case,

which affects Mbeere directly.

In 1982 the British government, working through ODd began to implement a large

project in Embu, Meru.and Isiolo Districts which was designed as a pilot technical

approach to natural resource development in arid and semi-arid land areas. the EMI

ASAL Project. The project consisted of five main components (including soil and water

conservation, small stock breeding and tree planting) which required reporting to four

different ministries in the Kenyan goveflrment. EMI was managed by expatriate staff

working together with Kenyan counterparts and lasted through till l99l .

Despite having some localised impacts, EMI was generally judged, at least by ODd to

have been a failure. The terms ofreference drawn up for a subsequent project preparation

mission list a whole series of problems and the reasons for these: "While high priority was

given to achieving better understanding ofthe socio-economic factors in the ASAL areas,

this was largely neglected during implementation...At best, the beneficial impact on ASAL

households was modest...[the] objective of strengthening the institutions responsible for

planning, implementing and facilitating the social and economic development of ASAL

people was not realised... [poor coordination] was exacerbated by the failure to perceive

the overall needs offarmers and their production systems in an integrated manner..." (ODI

1992: L 1-2).

25

EMI was originally designed to work from the provincial level downwards and partly as a

result of this failed to adapt to the newly decentralised system: "Since EMI was originally

conceived, there has been a major shift in Govemment policy affecting local level

development, enshrined in the District Focus for Rural Development Policy...and adopted

in 1983. This policy envisages much more local participation in the development process

with local communities being largely responsible for their own development. It is intended

that the role ofthe Government should be to facilitate the process ofsocial and economic

development by creating an enabling environment where constraints to development are

removed and opportunities are created. EMI project agreements were not revised to take

proper account ofthis policy change nor for the creation ofnational research

institutions...which were given mandates of direct relevance to the Programme" (ODI

1992:L.2\.

In line with this critique EMI was wound down in mid-1991. In late l99l a team of

consultants was despatched to Isiolo District to draw up, among other things, proposals

for a new district support programme there. In 1992 a second team was commissioned to

do the same for Embu, Meru and the newly-created Tharaka-Nithi Districts. The terms of

reference for this second consultancy marked a definite shift ofapproach consistent with

the stated objectives ofthe District Focus strategy: "The study will design approaches to

strengthen District and sub-District capacities in resource planning and management in

Embu and Meru. The aim will be to develop replicable models which focus on increasing

the efficiency ofuse ofthe resources available for economic and social development in the

Districts. Proposals will be made in the context of a process-project with participatory

planning as a key objective. To promote and encourage initiatives aimed at achieving the

foregoing modest capital aid may be made available. Particular attention will be given to

meeting the needs ofthe poorest, the special role ofwomen, and the conservation ofthe

natural environment" (ODI 1992: L l).

The resulting proposals mark an interesting return to the policies adopted by the British

colonial administration more than 40 years ago, although this fact is not made explicit, and

perhaps not even recognised by many ofthe consultants and ODA personnel involved

(there is, however, a real link, in that some senior advisors were once employed by the

colonial administration in Kenya, and also retained by the govemment after independence

in 1963). Along with various recommendations for improving the planning process at

district level, particular attention is paid to strengthening and increasing the involvement of

the local authorities - the Municipal, Town and County Councils (CCs) - and especially

the Community Development Departments within the latter. At present, and as a legacy

from the colonial period, the CCs are responsible for palng the salaries of Social

Development Assistants (SDAs), but not for their management and supervision, which are

the tasks of the Department of Social Services in the Ministry of Culture and Social

Services. It is proposed to shift all of these responsibilities to the Community

Development Departments for an experimental period, as well as making other provisions

(such as a grant to the CCs for the purchase ofbicycles and motor cycles) to improve the

efficiency oftheir work. It is also proposed to give a grant to the CCs to enable them to

assist women's and self-help groups tkough a Small Projects Fund.

Th€ SDAS are normally recruited from the communities in which they work- They are

expected to work closely with local leaders in the identification, planning, monitoring

and evaluation of development projects from the sub-locational up to divisional levels.

They are also expected to act as secretaries to the different local development

committees and sub-committees (specifically Women's and Social Development Sub-

committees) and one of their major tasks in this context is to ensure the coordination of

development activities to avoid duplication. However, SDAs rarely have the resources

or the necessary fraining to carry out all of these activities effectively. The ODI report

therefore also proposed that they should be given training appropriate to their roles and

new responsibilities, including assisting in the administration of the Small projects

Fund.

These proposals reproduce many aspects ofcolonial community development policy and

practice. In common with existing practice the basic approach recommended is still from

the top down, the major difference being a proposed shift in institutional responsibility for

community development away from the administration and govemment ministries

(especially the Ministry of culture and Social Services) and towards the elected councils-

A similar shift took place in colonial practice when the responsibility for community

development was transferred from District Officers to officials appointed and employed by

the District Councils (these were, of course, the forerunners of today's SDAs). From this

point of view, community development in Kenya would seem to be moving in a circle.

Moreover, the new proposals seem hardly to recognise what has changed in the

intervening 40 years: not only have political agendas and the distribution ofpower

changed, but also there have been many developments at grassroots level, including the

proliferation ofinitiatives which the state and its agents has only partially been able to

control. These initiatives are the subject ofthe remainder ofthis paper.

2.2 Grassrootslnitiatives

one striking feature ofthe official and orthodox rhetoric of community dwelopment is its

failure to recognise the existence ofgrassroots initiatives except in so far as these have

been captured by the state and incorporated into the development process. Women's

groups are recognised if only because ofthe strenuous efforts by the govemment and local

politicians to use them for their own purposes, though these eforts have not entirely

succeeded and women's groups are currently accorded less significance than they once

were. Other grassroots initiatives are almost entirely ignored: this applies in particular to

rotating savings and credit associations and some ofthe activities which are linked to the

local churches and schools. Indeed there is some distrust ofthese activities because of

their presumed political connections, and this is especially the case where NGOs are

involved.

2.2.1 Women's Groups

The women's group movement in Kenya traces a variety of origins, but its true history

began in the mid- 1960s with the formation of large numbers of groups by Kikuyu

women in Cenfal Province. Many of these began as mabai groups, functioning like

rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs) with the aim of enabling their

members to buy nmbai, iron roofing sheets, or to afford other home improvements.

The local context in which groups were formed placed a high premium upon mutual

assistance among women: land and male labour (because of labour migration to the

towns) were becoming increasingly scarce, while women's agricultural and domestic

responsibilities had increased and their access to cash income remained restricted. This

was against a background of political support for self-help initiatives (Harambee) in

building the newly-independent state (see section 1.2.2 above).

with official encouragement, similar groups began to appear elsewhere in the country.

The government fust declared its commitment to a women's group programme in

1966. In 1975, at the start of the United Nations' International Decade for Women, it

established a Women's Bureau to coordinate the activities of a nation-wide programme.

In many respects the state's relationship to the women's group movement is an

ambivalent one, and its assistance can also be interpreted as an attempt to control and

make best use of what are, essentially, grassroots organisations. This was particularly

evident in the late 1980s, when the government intervened to take over Maendeleo ya

Wanawake ("Women's Progress') and incorporate it within the women's wing of

KANU, then the only political party (Maendeleo had hitherto been an NG0, especially

active in women's development during the late colonial period, though rather less

important for tlte women's group movement by the time it was taken over). In

different parts of the country women's group members were then told that they would

have to join and subscribe to the new Maendeleo if they were to receive any support

llom the government. Ultimately, however, this attempt to gain further control over

the women's group movement and its resources - including the funds allocated to

groups by outside agencies and NGOs - failed when KANU was forced to diseneage

itself from Maendeleo following tlle legalisation of other political parties.

The majority of women's groups receive little or no assistance except that provided by

the government. They are required to register with the Department of Social Services

and are subject to the various attentions of its extension agents, along with agricultural

ofFrcers, chiefs and other officials in the local administration. Women's groups are

used in a number of ways to promote the government's development policies.

Registered groups are eligible to receive grants towards their projects, though the

demand for these is much greater than the supply. Groups are also encouraged to hold

fund-raising harambees for the same purpose. Otherwise they typically raise

subscriptions or shares from their members, and engage in a wide range of economic

activities, including collective farm labour for payment, in order to gatler seed-money

for their projects. As a nrle it is difficult for groups to obtain commercial credit or

establish larger enterprises without external assistance. While most groups aim to

develop community services or profitable enterprises, they also perform a variety of

30

welfare and other functions for their own members: for example' by exchanging

labour or by operating ROSCAS'

Registered women,s groups have to possess an elected chairwoman, tfeasufer, secretary

and committee. within this framework actual distributions of authority and

organisational procedures may vary considerably. Groups also differ considerably in

size and composition, both from one another and as they develop over time' Men may

also belong to women's groups, though in the majority of cases they are excluded.

Groups with more than five male members have to register as self-help, not women's,

groups. In general zuch groups, including those formed exclusively by men, are few

and far between.

It is difficult to obtain accurate figures for numbefs of women's goups and their

membership. There are a number of reasons for this. while social development

assistants record the number of registered gtoups in their reports, it is less common for

them (and not really in their interests) to delete or draw attention to groups which are

nolongeroperative.Tothisextentofficialfigurestendtobeinflated,thoughthe

existence of unregistered and unreported groups may redress the balance somewhat.

Meanwhile, for those groups which are registered, it is unusual for membership figures

to be updated from those reported at the time of registration. In some cases

membership will have grown considefably, in others the active membership will only

be a portion of the total recorded. For these reasons the reported figures have to be

treated with some caution.

AccordingtotheWomen'sBureau,in1988therewere26,92|women,sgloupsinthe

country with a total of over one million members (1,053,391). Mbeere accounts for

just a small fraction of this total. The information compiled in the following table

3 l

shows that in 1982 there were 140 registefed women's groups in the whole of lower

Embu (Siakago and Gachoka divisions), I 11 in the Mbeere area (lower Embu

excluding Mwea). The registered membership of 91 of these groups totalled 2,692

persons, a mean of 29.6 memb€rs per group. By 1990 the number of groups in lower

Embu had risen to an estimated 200 with a total of 7,517 members and an overall mean

of 37.6 members per group. While these figures offer no more than a rough

approximation, they suggest that as many as one third, possibly more, of all adult

women(aged20andover)inlowerEmbubelongtowomen'sgroups.Givensucha

level of involvement it is probable that the majority of women have belonged to a

registered women's group at some time in their lives, even if they do not do so now.

Welbourn(1990)speculatesthatsocialatrdeconomicchange,includingtheimpactsof

landreform,haveplacedalargerburdenuponwomenandthuscfeatedfavourable

conditions for the spread of women's groups in Mbeere: "More wives have husbands

workingaway,theirchildrenareatschool,andtheynolongerhavethemutual

traditional sup'port of close kin living nearby to help them. All the effort of farm and

household labour now falls on their own shoulders rather than being shared with the

rest of the family...This I believe is an important reason for the rapid emergence and

growthofwomen'sgfoupsinMbeereaselsewhere"(Welbourn1990:38).Reference

should also be made to the role played by ROSCAs in the formation of women's

groups: indicative, in part, of a demand for new conzumer gods on the part of

women and theif limited access to income and/or other forms of saving. This

explanation mirrors that given above for the rapid qrad of mabati groups in Central

Provinceafterindependence,thoughitdoesnotmentiontheroleofofficialsupport'

including the encouragement given to women's groups as part of the Special Rural

Development Programme (SRDP) in Mbeere'

) L

Women's Groups and Their Membership in I-ower Embu' l9E2 and 1990

sources: Mwaniki 1d1986: 214) and ODI (1992: l'3)

Administrative Area Year

t9E2 1990

Siakago Division

number of groups

number of members

mean per group

53

1430

27.0

84

2542

30.3

Gachoka Division

number of groups

number of members

mean per group

87

N/A

N/A

1 1 6

4975

42.9

TOTAL LOWEREMBU

number of groups

number of members

mean per group

140

N/A

N/A

2N

7517

37.6

TOTALMBEERE

numbef of groups

number of members

mean per group

l l l

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

J J

Despite the evident importance of women's gtoups in terms of the large numbers of

women who join them, many assessments of the women's group movement and the

groups themselves have been negative. This conclusion has been reached in studies of

women's groups in Mbeere as well as elsewhere in Kenya. Following a survey of 25

women's groups conducted in 1982 in three locations in Mbeere, Mwaniki (1986:22G

225) listed a whole catalogue of internal and external constraints upon their

effectiveness. These included women's heavy domestic and agricultural responsibilities

(restricting their contributions of time and money to groups); food shortages, water

scarcity and inadequate nutrition (especially during periods of drought); poor

organisation and weak leadership (eading to internal disputes and allegations of the

misappropriation of funds); lack of zupport from members' husbands; the failure to

identifu viable projects; lack of adequate numagement practices, including book-

keeping skills; lack of capital; lack of good roads and isolation from markets; the lack

of markets in any event for some products; lack of trained extension workers (Social

Development Assisans) and tlerefore appropriate advice; and, last but not least, the

general problem of women's subordination to men (which is at the root of some of the

constraints mentioned above). Given such a long fist it is surprising that anyone would

want to belong to a woman's group at all. Mwaniki asserts that he only saw one

project that had demonstrated sorne potential for generating income: a multi-purpose

hall built and owned by the Union of Kithunthiri Women's Groups, one of two zuch

unions included in his survey.

Welbourn (1990: 45-a8) is equally pessimistic, and also asserts that most women's

groups are not successful. The reasons she gives do not add much to Mwaniki's list,

and include resistance by husbands and the exclusion of single or otherwise

troublesome women; lack of education among group members and a consequent lack of

strong gfoup leaders and groups with clear objectives; failure to identiry viable

projects; and women's lack of time and money. According to Welbourn tlis last

constraint suggests that in some cases poorer women will not be able to join groups,

although Mwaniki does not provide any support for this conclusion (which in some

ways contradicts Welbourn's own thesis about the formation of groups and the type of

women likely to form them).

Similar analyses have been produced in virtually every study of women's groups in

Kenya (see McCormack et al. 1986:. 10-17 for an overview). The pattern is: a

catalogue of constraints, longer or shorter as the case may be, and the conclusion that

the potential for further developing women's groups, and especially their capacity for

running successful income-generating enterprises, is limited. Mwaniki concludes:

'...there are no easy or immediate solutions for many problems facing Mbeere

women's groups because underlying them are broad structural factors...In light of these

problems Mbeere women's groups would perhaps be better off if they concentrated on

their mutual assistance activities . . . " (1986: 225) , although he conceded that some

income-generating projects might work. Welbourn is similarly cautious in

recommending that the (former) EMI Programme should work with women's groups:

'Working with women's groups alone is not necessarily going to give women access to

long-term, sustainable income; it is not necessarily going to lighten women's physical

and psychological burdens; nor will it ensure women an opportunity to speak out about

their problems and needs to a sympathetic responsive audience' (1990: 48). These

conclusions are also echoed in the ODI reporr Q992: 1.2-3).

It is not difficult to reach such conclusions after scanning the histories of individual

groups. We collected detailed histories of 2l women's groups in Mavuria Location,

formed from 1974 onwards (and only a sample of all the groups fonned during this

period: Mwaniki, for example, cites the existence of 38 women's groups in this

3 5

location in 1982 (1986: 214)). 15 of the 2l goups in our sample have since collapsed

or have otherwise become dormant, for reasons which can all be found in Mwaniki's

list. Kamacaci Women's Group, for example, which was formed in Gataka village in

1979, disintegrated in 1984 following the failure of its plans to construct a rental

building / business premises (the building stones had already been purchased).

According to some former members this was because the group's officials had

misappropriated the funds for the project: on another account ownership of the plot on

which the premises were to be built was asserted by the sons of the man who had

donated it, following which mernbers accused the group's officials of incompetence for

failing to ensure that no such problems would arise.

What such accounts lack, however, is a broader perspective on group formation and

memb€rship over time in any one area, as well as an understanding of the underlying

reasons for group success as well as failure. The formation, development and decline

of groups is a dynamic process. The fact that groups continue to be formed, and that

many women, despite having belonged to failed groups, continue to experiment with

others, suggests that women do gain something from group membership. One of these

gains may well be the experience which leads to later success: and it is not unusual to

find that the members and officials of successful groups have come from groups which

have not survived. ln any event the survival rate of women's groups is probably not

much worse than that of other small enterprises.

A rather different picture emerges when successful groups are analysed. In their study

of women's groups in Coast Province, McCormack et al.(1986) found that the initial

success of groups rests on the extent of their access to the labour of members and to the

cash provided by members or their households. The amount of income which these

households (and women as household members) are prepared to invest in groups is

conditioned by the sum of demands upon them, their ability to meet these demands,

and the returns they can expect from this as opposed to other investments. Under these

circumstances it is not easy for groups working alone to establish viable enterprises. In

order to overcome these obstacles, groups need allies, and the major allies available to

them are the government (in the shape of the Department of Social Services) and

various NGOs. Although there is often a price to be paid for its assisrrnce, the

government can provide grants to capitalise new enterprises, while the NGOs can also

provide valuable technical assistance in the planning and operation of enterprises.

Considerable importance also attaches to the choice of enterprise: those which are new

to a community, particularly those which are capital and labour intensive, are diffrcult

for groups to operate successfully.

On the basis of these findings, the two NGOs working with these groups, Tototo Home

Industies (of Mombasa) and World Education Inc. (of Boston), designed a programme

of training and other assistance which firrther increased the profitability and

sustainability of women's group enterprises (see Kane et al. l99l\. The wider

significance of this work was that it argued that a lot more could be done to increase

the viability of women's groups and their enterprises. For the most part, however,

women's groups have received less attention from NGOs and other agencies than they

did in the nid-1980s. one reason for this has been the negative assessment offered in

most reports about women's groups, many of them, it must be said, based upon quick

and impressionistic research. A second reason has been the general shift in favour of

micro-enterprise credit, especially on a group-lending model (the loans being made to

individuals), as a more cost-effective way of increasing incomes and employment,

fostering economic development, and alleviating poverty in both rural and urban

communities.

J I

A third reason for the relative lack of interest in women's groups on the part of

development practitioners in both the public and private sectors lies, in a sense, behind

the two reasons already given. While the state and other agencies have been keen to

capture and use women's groups for their own purposes, both political and economic,

they have been less than willing to engage groups on their own terms. As a result most

research on women's groups has been superficial, and has led to the conclusion that

groups are not worth any significant investment. Micro-enterprise credit, on the other

hand, offers a number of advantages. It requires minimal interaction with the clients,

and development is, again, managed from the centre, b€ing reduced to the circulation

of funds and the simple monitoring of repayment rates.

2.2.2 Rotating Savings and Credit Associetions

The nabai groups which gave rise to the women's group movement in Kenya were, in

effect, rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs) formed in part for the

purpose of financing home improvements. Even today the majority of registered

women's groups in Mbeere have grown up around ROSCAs of one kind or another,

and it is unusual to find a group which does not continue to operate a ROSCA in

addition to its other activities. ROSCAs are in fact ubiquitous in Mbeere: there are

very many more ROSCAs than registered women's groups, including associations

which are in transition between the two and are sometimes described ds unregistered

women's groups. From this point of view ROSCAS and the "informal' groups which

develop out of them are part of an extensive and fertile substratum of voluntaristic

organisation in local communities which the state and other agencies have not been able

to manage or otherwise take advantage of, except in so far as they have captured, or

38

aftempted to capture, the women's group movement at the most developed end of the

ROSCA-women's group continuum.

ROSCAs in Kenya are usually relegated to a footnote in the development literature, and

we do not know of any concerted attempts to mobilise their development potential or

even understand their existing impacts. There is, however, some comparative literature

on the phenomenon of ROSCAs world-wide, in which debate has focused upon

establishing typologies of ROSCAs and understanding their functions in society as a

whole. In a seminal paper Geertz described the ROSCA as "essentially a device by

means of which traditionalistic forms of social relationship are mobilized so as to fulfil

non-traditionalistic economic functions... [t is] an 'intermediate' institution growing up

within peasant social strucfure, to harmonize agrarian economic patterns with

commercial ones, to act as a bridge between peasant and trader attitudes toward money

and its uses" Q9A: 242). Following a more extensive survey of the literature,

Geertz's conclusion was questioned by Ardener, pointing to the persistence of ROSCAs

alongside formal financial institutions and their absence in many societies without

commercial institutions (19&:221-222). Ardener argued that ROSCAs, including

some of the most "developed" ones, cannot be understood in terms of economic motive

alone, although their "most obvious function...is that they assist in small-scale capital-

formation, or more simply, they create savings" (196/:217).

Subsequent analyses have not added significantly to these conclusions (see, for

example, Kurtz 1973; Schrader l99l; and Brusley et al. 1992). As has often turned out

to be the cas€ in the comparative study of institutions, the search for a simple typology

and globally applicable function or functions is probably doomed from the start.

Within Mbeere alone ROSCAs perform a variety of functions, both social and

economic, and even when they evolve into multi-activity women's groups we cannot

39

say that one set of functions (for example, the economic) has become more important

than the other.

Ardener provides the most succinct definition ofa ROSCA as "An association formed

upon a core of participants who agree to make regular contributions to a fund which is

given, in whole or in part, to each contributor in rotation" (196/.:2Ol). The two

essential criteria, according to Ardener, are rotation and regularity, to distinguish

ROSCAs from other mutual benefit clubs and cooperative undertakings. In Mbeere

this definition might b€ stretched to include cooperative weeding by women (sometimes

helped by men) when it is performed on a rotational and regular basis (a common

pattem is every Saturday at one of the member's farms). This kind of cooperation is

quite common in Mbeere and also often performed as one of the activities of women's

groups, though it may also be undertaken by groups of people who meet solely for this

purpose. The essential difference, of course, is that the input to these work groups is

labour, whereas the primary input to RoSCAs (as normally understood and defined

here) are cash contributions. Needless to say a full account of RoscAs and their

origins in Mbeere would have to consider both types of association.

ROSCAs in Mbeere are formed by women, men, and mixed groups of men and

women, though as in the case of registered groups women-only RoSCAs seem to be by

far the most common. sometimes they are formed by groups of closely related kin, but

the vast majority of RoscAs are composed of small groups of neighbours, some of

whom nray be closely related but others not. A few ROSCAs are formed on an

occupational rather than a neighbourhood basis: market traders, for example, often

form their own associations in which the object is to assist in the purchase of capital

inputs (usually petty commodities) to their businesses. As noted above, the

proliferation and sheer numbers of RoscAs in Mbeere are striking. Just over half

(11/20) of a small sample of women in Kamugu, near Siakago, were active members of

ROSCAs, some of them (2i ll) being members of two ROSCAs simultaneously, while

other women (3/20) who were not current members had belonged to ROSCAs in the

past: making a total ofjust under three-quarters of the sample (14i20) who declared

past or present participation in ROSCAs. A much smaller proportion of these women,

one-fifth to be exact, were past or present members of regisGred women's groups.

These women may well have underreported their past membership of ROSCAs. A

smaller sample of 12 women in the Ishiara area showed that all of them had belonged

to ROSCAs at one time or another (7 of them currently and the remainder in the past).

Data collected in the course ofa household survey h 1992 suggest that comparable

levels of involvement can be extrapolated for Mbeere as a whole.

ROSCAs in Mbeere, as throughout rural Kenya, conform to the most basic pattern

described in the literature (both Geertz (1962) and Ardener (1964) present information

on a range of associations which are organisationally complex and extremely

sophisticated financially). Most ROSCAs on which we haYe information have between

l0 and 20 members, usually closer to the lower figure. Members me€t to contribute

fixed amounts of cash weekly or monthly: contributions (calculated on a montl y

basis) uzually fall in the range of Kshs 10 to IShs 120 per month, this last example

coming from an association of men and women in Ishiara market whose members give

IShs 30 each per week. The sum of contributions in any we€k or month is usually

presented to just one of the members- In many cases this money is already earmarked

for a particular purpose. Women's ROSCAs often save in order to enable members to

purchase crockery and cutlery for their households. The example of market traders

buying inputs for their enterprises has already been mentioned above. Other recorded

ROSCA objectives include the purchase of farm equipment and (separately) goas.

4 l

ROSCAs suffer from some of the same constraints as women's groups, though perhaps

not to the same degree. When hard-pressed for cash members may have no option but

to drop out, thereby producing complications in terms of contributions owed. When

more than one member drops out this usually sp€lls instant doom for the association,

which may colapse in the midst of heated recriminations. However, the available

evidence suggests that this is not a common occurrence: peer group pressure and the

mutual aid ethos engendered by ROSCAs tend to insulate them against many stresses,

while unlike women's groups they operate with fewer members and on a fxed and

relatively short time cycle. ROSCAs are most likely to collapse in times of general

stress, for example during periods of food shortage and famine, and we have some

evidence for this happening. On the other hand, the facton which make ROSCAs quite

resilient, including tieir modest size, degree of organisation required and short time

cycles, make it easy for them to reform following such crises, whether with a different

membership or not.

In the absence of comprehensive statistics it is difficult to assess the overall impact of

ROSCAs in Mbeere, or anywhere else in Kenya for that matter. We know for certain

that they play a critical role in the development of women's groups. It is also evident

that they play a very important role in the mobilisation of savings, as well as in tle

creation of local networks of mutual support. The initial success elsewhere in Kenya of

micro-enterprise credit programmes based upon group guarante€s (the Grame€n Bank

model imported by the Kenya Rural Enterprise Programme and PRIDE) undoubtedly

owes something to the same factors. Ironically these progr:rmmes were introduced

without reference to or even an understanding of existing savings and credit systems,

including the ROSCAs, in rural and urban communities. In a sense communities like

those in Mbeere already have their own indigenous credit programmes, the difference

being that they are not directed from above and that they are generally tailored to more

modest domestic requirements.

2,2.3 Schools and Churches

Further indication ofthe dyramism ofgrassroots initiatives is apparent in the development

and development activities associated with larger local institutions, particularly schools

and churches. whereas the history of RoSCAs and other forms of everyday association is

almost invisible, at least from the state's and a district point ofview, the history ofthese

larger and more permanent institutions is also more transparent, and can be readily traced

back to the early colonial period. The initial establishment of both schools and churches

was, ofcourse, a direct consequence of external interventions during the colonial period,

interventions by both the administration (in the case ofschools) and missionary

organisations (in the case ofboth churches and schools). Thereafter, however, and with

increasing popular demand for education (to be translated into material welfare) and the

spiritual welfare provided by the christian churches (the two were often intimately linked),

many ofthese institutions have taken on a life oftheir own, with considerable inputs from

the communities in which they are located.

Primary responsibility for Kenya's education system - including education policy, the

school curriculum, the provision of educational facilities, the inspection of schools and

payment ofteachers' salaries - rests with the government and the Ministry ofEducation in

particular. However, the demand for education since independence has far outstripped the

state's capacity to supply all ofthe necessary facilities, especially school buildings,

classrooms and the fittings and material equipment which they require. As a result the

govemment has more than welcomed the contributions made bv local communities to

43

building and equipping schools. This encouragement of self-help initiatives has led to the

construction of many schools since independence, including the ',Harambee,' secondary

schools as well as more modest primary facilities (see section 1.2.2 above). Although

Mbeere has lagged behind upper Embu and other high potential areas in the demand for

education, there has been a considerable proportional increase in the number ofschools

constructed in the area over the past two decades and more (for an overview ofeducation

in Mbeere, including its earlier history, see Riley and Brokensha 1988: 25,301-308)

The construction and development of Gataka Primary school, near Kiritiri, provides an

illustration ofthe kind oflocal initiative which has been reproduced throughout Mbeere.

In 1973 a group of local residents, all ofthem men, formed a committee to press for

permission from the govemment to construct a primary school. After much lobbying and

waiting, a permit to do so was issued the following year, in 1974. Thereupon committee

members began the difficult task of trying to mobilise local people to contribute cash and

their own labour towards the construction of the school. In the end committee members

began to build a nursery classroom themselves, using local materials (earth and timbers).

This work was intemrpted by short rains, when everyone turned to the task of cultivating

their farms. In early 1975 the committee began to run a nursery class in a nearby church

building, the teacher being paid from contributions by the children's parents. This still left

the problem ofwhere they would be taught when a second intake was admitted and they

had moved uD to standard one.

Later on in 1975, another group oflocal men, younger than the committee members,

seized the initiative and completed the nursery classroom which had been begun the year

before. In order to raise the funds for building a second classroom they organised discos

every evening, charging an entrance fee. At the same time they also began to cut timber

for the building mobilising friends to help them when they could. Income from the disco

paid for iron roofing sheets and the construction ofthe classroom as well as a smaller

building to serve as a staff-room. This group ofyoung men then stepped aside to let the

committee continue with its work.

In 1976 the Ministry ofEducation posted two teachers to the school, which now consisted

of a nursery class and standard one. Thereafter at least one classroom had to be built

every year to accommodate the school's annual intake ofpupils. From this point on the

heaviest burden fell upon the pupils' parents, who provided communal labour in addition

to making regular contributions ofmoney to pay for materials and the input of

professional builders. Not all of the classrooms were completed on time, in which case

some classes had to be divided into morning and aftemoon shifts. The same solution was

also applied during a period when the school was understaffed and waiting for more

teachers to be posted there.

By 1985 a complete sa of eight earth-and-timber-walled classrooms had been built. The

school committee then decided to embark on the construction of stone-wall classrooms to

replace them. Parents therefore continued to contribute to a building fund every time, and

still do so today. In 1988 the Embu-based NGO plan Intemational built two new

classrooms for the school: parents contributed Kshs 18,000 to pay the builder and also

dug the foundations and carried water to the site. plan also erected a large water tank in

1990, again assisted by the parents. In 1991 the school was given Kshs 175,000 by plan

to build another pair of classrooms. The school committee requested this assistance

and parents raised Kshs 24,850 to pay the builder. construction ofthe classrooms is

still underway, and some are in use although they do not have any windows yet.

In 1991 the school committee decided to introduce compulsory boarding for standard

eight students, reasoning that they would therefore be able to spend more time studying

45

and perform better in their final KCPE (Kenya certificate of primary Education) exams.

Boarding began in March 1991 and the boarders were asked to contribute set quantities of

maize and legumes, to provide their own beds, mattresses, blankets and boxes, and to pay

a fee of over Kshs 100 to cover the salary ofa cook and the cost ofvarious ingredients.

This went well until the next year, 1992, when the failure of many parents' to pay these

fees led to the suspension ofthe boarding facility. our latest information is that no

decision has yet been made about its future.

This history, which could be repeated for many other schools in Mbeere, indicates the

strength and versatility ofgrassroots initiative. All ofthe major decisions about the

development ofthe school have been taken by community members working, after they

had started it, together with the headmaster and teachers (many ofwhom are or have

become community members themselves). The school committee has also changed and

developed over time: while it began as small group ofmen and elders, in late 1992 it had

twelve members, a third of them women, and most of them local farmers and, of course,

parents.

Many churches in Mbeere are similarly founded in local initiative and effort. Unlike

schools, though, they are formally separate from the state, which guarantees freedom of

worship in its constitution. In fact this separation is so sharp that the national churches,

especially those affiliated to the NCCK (National christian council of Kenya), are often

perceived as posing a threat to the government. This has been particularly clear in the past

decade, with the NCCK spearheading the campaign for the introduction of multi-party

democracy and acting in some ways as the unofficial opposition to the KANU

govemm€nt. This does not mean that the local churches are active in national party

politics, though like all community institutions they are frequently subject to local political

conflicts and machinations. The separation of church from state does mearL however. that

they present a much more varied and dyramic picture than the schools, which all conform

to a basic pattern.

Kenya is home to a bewildering variety of Christian denominations and sects, some of

them grown on its own soil. Mbeere shares in some of this diversity. Active churches in

the Kiritiri area, for example, include the CPK (Church ofthe province ofKenya, or

Anglican church), the Roman catholic church, the East African pentecostal church, the

Full Gospel Church, the Full Gospel Anglican Church (sic), and the Seventh Day

Adventists. The most prominent churches in Mbeere, at least to an outside observer, are

the Anglican (cPK) and Roman catholic churches. This is because they were the first to

become established, are part of wider national (and international) congregations, and as a

result are able to support a number of development activities. The cpK does this in part

through a sister organisatioq compassion Intemational, which has assisted a number of

schools in Siakago DMsion. The Roman catholic church is particularly active through its

separate missions, which include the Don Bosco Salesians in Gachoka and the consolata

Fathers (and Sisters) in Ishiara. The mission in Ishiar4 to give but one example, has

sponsored many local projects, including the construction of primary schools and

classrooms, a hospital and (by bringing in Italian government aid) the National cereals and

Produce Board (NCPB) depot and grain storage facility at Ishiara.

At grassroots level, and away from the influence of foreign missions, local initiatives are as

evident in church organisation and activities as they are in the schools. There are many

parallels with the building and development ofschools, as described in our earlier example.

church committees and (in the case ofthe cPK) parish councils can be as active and

innovative as the school committees, ifnot more so. They may also be even more

representative of local interests: the committee of Nguru cpK church in Gataka village,

near Kiritiri, has, for example, I I members, 5 of them women, all of them members of the

47

local farming community (a degree of representation far more impressive than that on any

ofthe local development committees). The local churches also coordinate other

community actMties: these include youth clubs, local branches of the Mothers' Union

(which function much like women's groups) and various forms of assistance to the poor

and needy.

2.3 The Role of NGOs

The larger church development organisations and projects referred to above fall into the

category ofNGOs or non-government organisations. The term NGO is a catch-all for

private voluntary organisations of all shapes and sizes above the local community level,

ranging in a continuum from small, indigenous, bodies up to large, international, agencies

like Oxfam. Kenya has proved a very fertile ground for NGOs over the past two decades,

and they have proliferated across the country, the vast majority ofthem operating from

head offices in Nairobi. The NGO community as a whole stands in an ambivalent relation

to the state (compare the discussion in ODI I 992: G.l). On the one hand NGOs have

been welcomed by the govemment and local politicians for the innumerable projects they

undertake and the resources they attract from donor agencies. On the other hand they

have been suspected from time to time of working to undermine the govemment, a

suspicion enhanced by knowledge of the close relations which exist between some NGOs

and the churches in the NCCK. The government has therefore acted on a number of

occasions to strengthen its control over both local and foreign NGOs, and this, as we have

seen, was one ofthe objectives ofthe District Focus stratery (see section 2. 1.2. I above).

Judging by the government's continued unease about NGO activities it would appear not

to have achieved the degree of control which it wishes. At the same time it would be fair

48

to say that many NGos, indigenous and international, are treading very warily in order to

avoid falling foul ofthe government and local administration.

In addition to the churches and mission projects, a number ofNGOs operate or have

operated in Mbeere. These include Plan International, CARE Kenya, the Kenya Freedom

From Hunger campaign, the Bellerive Foundation, and Heifer International, to name but a

few. The most extensive prograrnme is run by Plan International (Foster parents plan

International in full), an American NGo which has its Kenyan headquarters in Embu town.

The decision to site its offices in Embu, and not Nairobi, is generally ascribed to successful

lobblng on the part ofEmbu's principal power-broker and government minister_

whatever the case, the range ofactivities pursued by plan and its staff since the early

1980s is very impressive. In lower Embu these activities have been concentrated in

Gachoka Division, though there are plans to expand into Siakago Division. plan's original

and core activity is child sponsorship, on the basis ofwhich it has provided assistance of

different kinds to schools (hence the construction of classrooms and water storage

facilities referred to earlier) and worked in numerous other fields: the improvement of

water supplies, nutrition, health care, agricultural practices (including pest control and

composting), and the provision of famine reliefin the form ofa "food-for-work',

programme (digging terraces and bunds).

Many NGo interventions, including some of those mentioned above, adopt the technical,

top-dow4 approach which characterises aid projects in general. In other respects,

however, their approach is more genuinely participatory. This is achieved in different

ways. NGos typically employ staff and fieldworkers from the communities in which they

work: indeed the best indigenous NGOs are run by local people (though examples of this

are few and far between, and there are certainly none in Mbeere: for a case elsewhere in

Kenya see walsh 1989) Another strategy is to set up local committees as part ofthe

49

framework of the NGos operations: Plan has done this with the creation of its own sub-

locational development committees, as well as in the context ofparticular projects (for

example by instituting local borehole committees to supervise their maintenance).

Moreover NGOs like Plan are usually very responsive to requests coming from the

communities in which they work: hence Plan's positive response to the requests ofthe

Gataka Primary School committee for assistance in building new classrooms. The scale

ofNGo activities also makes them more flexible and capable of both experimenting with

new approaches and adapting to changing circumstances. The diversification ofplan,s

programmes in Gachoka DMsion and their rapid response to local famine conditions

provide illustrations of this.

while it would not be difficult to produce a list of NGo mistakes, the point is that these

are less likely to occur and more likely to be corrected in the context ofNGo prograrnmes

than in that of other kinds ofaid project. From this point ofview NGOs are ideally

situated to mediate between the grassroots and other agencies, including the govemment

and donor organisations. certainly they are in a much better position to foster initiatives

from the grassroots than the formal structures favoured by the government and, in

modified fonn, in recent proposals to the ODA. The ODI report, while acknowledgrng

the role that NGos play in promoting small-scale projects at village level, criticised the

lack of coordination between NGos and pointed to the presumed limitations of NGos in

handling larger projects: "They do not have the resources or the mandates to tackle

projects which cross location boundaries, for example, major water projects, roads, etc.

Engineering resources and business advice are areas of weakness" (1992: G.9). This is

clearly nonsense: many NGos, including Plan International, are already working across

location (and division, and district) boundaries, many NGos have well-developed business

programmes; and, given that suchjobs are usually carried out by private contractors, there

is no need to involve NGOs in large-scale engineering works

50

Having presented this rather deficient assessment of NGO capacity, the ODI report

concludes as follows: 'Apart ilom some help if the NGOs decide to form a district

association and network, it is not recommended that ODA channel project funds, aimed

at improved planning and management, to the NGOs" (192: G.9). The alternative

suggested by ODI, as we have seen, provides even less opportunity for the promotion

of grassroots initiatives.

3 Conclusions

The conclusions reached in this paper are relatively straightforward, though they do

provide a challenge to a large body of received wisdom. Community development and its

analogues, as currently promoted by development practitioners both inside and outside the

aid agencies, is at best poorly conceived and at worst a sham. The claim that a

community-based approach has evolved simply in response to the failure oftop-down

technically-oriented projects is undermined by a consideration ofthe very real continuities

that exist between contemporary prescriptions and the community development policy of

the colonial period. In both cases the rhetoric works to mask another variation on the top-

down approach and the political agendas of community development's different

proponents. One ofthe governmentrs agendas, and that ofits regional power-brokers, is

to capture grassroots initiatives for its (and their) own political purposes. Many local-

level initiatives, however, evade capture, are misunderstood, or escape attention

altogether. At the same time the present and potential role of NGOs in promoting these

initiatives is either treated with suspicion (by the government) or undervalued (in current

proposals to revive community development in Embu and neighbouring districts) The

result promises to be even worse than the mess which community development - the

5 l

orthodox version - is supposed to clear up. We can, however, take some pleasure in the

probability that grassroots initiatives ofone kind or another will continue to flourish,

whether supported or not.

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