Case Studies
The emerging trend in the policy formulation process points to a more participatory,
consultative and inclusive development process. This has highlighted the role of
different stakeholders in the initiation and implementation of development projects.
This links with the shift towards a strategic focus on wealth creation and poverty
reduction through pro-poor growth. A number of initiatives illustrate these emerging
processes. Two case studies are presented below that illustrate such inititaitves.
The Millennium Villages Project
The Millennium Villages Project is a donor supported initiative that emerged after the
SRA had been produced. Although it addresses issues raised in the SRA such as the
objectives of the agricultural sector, these were not primarily the goal. However, those
goals pertaining to the agricultural sector find themselves embodied with those of the
project. These include reducing the number of those suffering from hunger, increasing
agricultural productivity, output and incomes, developing supportive rural
infrastructure, enhancing stakeholder involvement in the policy process and ensuring
food security.
The MVP applies all the MDGs targets agreed upon by the UN member countries
aimed at reducing poverty. The targets for all the goals represent a holistic package of
site-specific interventions for 12 impoverished villages in Kenya, Ethiopia, Ghana,
Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. Kenya’s Sauri sub-
location was selected in July 2005 to be the first Millennium Research Village5. It
comprises 11 villages hosting 5000 people within Yala Division, Siaya District,
Nyanza Province in the western region of Kenya.
The principal objective of this project is the eradication of absolute poverty by 2025,
but with a medium term goal of cutting it to half by 2015 through the holistic
application of the MDGs targets. It is designed to find a model to tackle poverty at the
village level. Poverty, however, is relative and the poor who are targeted by the
project are the “poorest of the poor” generally referred to as the “extreme poor” or the
“absolute poor”, who comprise one sixth of humanity and cannot meet their basic
needs of survival unaided. They live on less than US $1 a day and all reside in
developing countries enduring below subsistence levels of living.
5The Earth Institute (2005), Annual Report: Millennium Research Villages. The First Year: July 2004
– June 2005, Columbia University, December.
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In recognition of this tragedy engulfing a sixth of humanity, the Earth Institute came
up with this project to assist them come out of the poverty trap and make first steps
towards development. The Project is conceptualised such that the local governments
and villagers work in partnership with the MVP in a comprehensive plan to place
necessary investments in critical, life-saving and practical interventions in agriculture;
education; health; nutrition; energy; transportation; water; sanitation; and the
environment to tackle the inter-related aspects of absolute poverty, namely hunger,
disease, lack of access to education, clean drinking water, poor sanitation, poor
infrastructure, etc. The project works with investments of about US $50 – US $70 per
person per year and calls for investment in what is termed the “big 5”, which include
investments in agriculture, basic health, education, power, transport and
communication, and safe drinking water and sanitation.
At Bar Sauri, the millennium village, these investments have been made.
Smallholders have received inputs namely; fertilizer, seeds, and extension services.
There have been reports of bumper harvest from the village, implying that increased
productivity in agriculture, increased agricultural output, food security and a reduction
in the number of the hungry in the village has improved and with it a fall in poverty
levels. The MVP has been seen as an example of a donor initiated and implemented
process, but one that works with local stakeholders, the government and local
villagers all of whom act to complement donor resources financially or through own
labour.
The villagers of Bar Sauri are impressed by the outcome of this project. They have
had a bumper harvest; have new and renovated dispensaries with staff and medicine;
and their rural access roads have seen some improvement. Improved access to health
increases agricultural productivity through a healthy labour force. Such efforts have
the potential to sustain long term agricultural development and should therefore be
facilitated. With their anticipated ripple effect from the epicentre and spreading
outwards, the impact would be significant in the outer years and especially if
sustainability could be achieved. Being a pilot project, however, the currently visible
achievements could be short-term for the period of the project. Even the anticipated
ripple effects entailing the multiplication of similar projects elsewhere, could be a
pipe dream because their attainment are largely pegged on availability of financial
resources. The major challenge, therefore, remains how to sustain the gains into the
long-term and also entice the ripple effects into the future ad in neighbouring villages
and beyond. It requires identifying a source of funding for the initiative for the long
haul which would eventually make the intended beneficiaries self-reliant.
At the same time, the short lifespan of the project also means that its weaknesses have
not emerged and that the jury is still out. The short lifespan does not enable a critical
assessment of the project’s impact in the neighbouring villages. The anticipated
impact is that it would generate the desire to emulate what goes on in Sauri and have
similar outcomes. Nonetheless, they would be handicapped in terms of resources
unlike Sauri, which is a pilot project with funding. That could generate some
resentment as they would also expect financial support that may not be readily
available. However, the project being pilot, is meant to demonstrate that there are
efforts that could have desirable outcomes in terms of improving people’s lives with
contributions from different sources ranging from government, central and local,
development partners, civil society, the scientific community, the community itself
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and even the individuals themselves. They would tap into the resources they would
readily access like their own labour. Current efforts to improve development at the
districts or even constituencies level through devolved funding would be a boost for
such efforts.
The challenge for the government is also lack of the amount of resources that would
be required for such an initiative. Both lack adequate resources to meet the MDGs
requirements. The Needs Assessment and Costing Report estimated, for example, that
the country requires US $ 61 billion between 2005 and 2015 to achieve the MDGs.
This amount of resources cannot be secured from public sources solely but would
require the support of development partners as well. The bonding of the people and
the government to provide supplementary resources in terms of human effort and
additional local resources is, therefore, necessary but not sufficient. The development
partners efforts in terms of continued and sustained provision of the resources
required to meet the MDGS would provide the sufficient condition. Tapping this and
even depending on it is unadvisable given the inability to honour even the
development assistance targets pegged as a ratio of their respective GDPs to the
developing world in general.
Devolved Funds
Fiscal reforms aimed at devolving central government resources for rural development
is not a new phenomenon in Kenya. Such initiatives date back to the early 1980s when
the District Focus for Rural Development (DFRD) was introduced. These earlier
initiatives performed dismally mainly because of limited people participation that
failed to generate local ownership of projects funded under them. The motivation for
the introduction of devolved funds was the desire to avoid government red-tape,
delays in disbursement, increase absorption rates, and encourage people participation
on prioritization of their needs in their localities to enhance their ownership of projects
amongst many other reasons. Such Funds with enhanced stakeholder participation
include the Constituency Development Fund (CDF), Local Authorities Transfer Fund
(LATF), Road Maintenance Levy Fund (RMLF), Rural Electrification Fund (REF),
and HIV/AIDS Fund. These Funds were aimed at establishing rural/urban
infrastructure with the incorporation of people’s voices. They represent good
examples of community-driven development and have been used to improve rural
access roads (RMLF, LATF), improve water supply systems (CDF, LATF), enhance
accessibility to power (REF), enhance education and training (FPE, Bursary Fund),
leave smallholders with more funds to invest in agriculture (Bursary Fund, FPE,
HIV/AIDS Fund) and improve their health status and their productivity (HIV/AIDS
Fund, CDF, LATF) among others. Such developments reflect a more participatory
approach to resource mobilisation and utilisation where development priorities as
identified by the people are used. Such efforts embrace and also complement the SRA
vision of private sector led development and agricultural commercialisation.
The funds impacts are important for the agricultural sector to facilitate the realization
of its goals. The improvement of rural access roads, access to power in rural areas,
adequate clean water, more funds released for investment in agriculture, for example,
would spur agricultural development. The access to markets and information provides
opportunities for use of improved technology for agro processing, storage, and other
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forms of value addition. Their impacts therefore conform well to the broad goal of the
SRA to commercialise agriculture. They open up more markets, create the potential to
add value to raw produce via the availability of rural power for agro-processing, reduce
wastage of raw and perishable commodities due to good rural roads and possible cold
storage facilities due to availability of power, and improve health status of farmers thus
enhancing their productivity amongst others. However, the funds introduction just before
the SRA seems to be a coincidence rather than planned. The SRA does not explicitly
reflect the devolution of funds as an important aspect for its implementation, although the
contribution of these funds especially rural infrastructure is crucial for the envisaged
commercialised, private sector led agriculture. The private sector needs an enabling
environment for doing business, which is facilitated by the devolved funds.
For the Funds to create the impacts for which they were designed, they not only need
continuity in terms of adequate funding, but also proper management structures with the
required capacity to deliver on their mandates. The devolution of funds from the central
government to the periphery is still a new and evolving phenomenon and numerous
teething problems still abound. The management of some of them like the CDF and
LATF, has shown signs of being misused by the political elite to satisfy their political
objectives. This has the potential to derail the Funds away from their set goals and short
change the communities who were meant to benefit from the projects they fund. At the
same time, basically all of them anticipate wider consultations with stakeholders and the
respective communities, who also face limited capacity problems. They are expected to
facilitate needs identification to which priority of funds allocation should be made and
thereafter perform monitoring and evaluation of the projects being implemented.
However, they may still not have the necessary skills to perform these tasks. For instance,
the monitoring and evaluation demands qualitative and quantitative techniques to verify
progress or ascertain achievements of the projects and especially for the latter,
communities would generally be handicapped to deliver on that role. Capacity building
for the Funds management and stakeholders to perform roles anticipated for them under
the various Funds would be quite crucial for them to realise their roles satisfactorily. New
management structures that are aimed at reducing or eliminating control by the political,
economic or even social elites are necessary. This will ensure that agriculture where
majority of the population is employed benefits from such initiatives. SRA therefore has
to accommodate them in their policies and strategies to facilitate the attainment of their
own objectives and to avoid at the same time duplications. The Funds thus have
significant potential to influence and shape policy implementation in agriculture, despite
their current problems both.
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http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTKENYA/Resources/donor_statement_agricultu re
Joint Statement of Development Partners for the Kenya
