Dairy farmers in Kenya struggle with low milk yields that fluctuate wildly from wet season to dry. An IFAD-funded programme in the south-west of the country is rehabilitating the dairy subsector by boosting milk yields, strengthening farmers’ organizations and bringing producers, transporters, processors and traders together to the benefit of all.

Improving access to water and community services is a good starting point for supporting the empowerment of rural women. Thanks to an IFAD-supported project, women in five districts of Kenya’s Central Province are enjoying new opportunities to improve their living conditions and the well-being of their families and to acquire income-generating skills. Project initiatives are helping shift traditional gender imbalances, as women slowly gain the ability to share more equally in available resources and development opportunities, and even begin taking on leadership roles within their communities.

In designing and implementing rural development projects, our prime goal and objective is to improve the livelihoods of the people who we work with and serve. We report on project outcomes and achievements, we measure project success against the logical framework and we prepare completion reports showing the impact with hard facts and figures.
But there is nothing better, more powerful and moving than seeing with your own two eyes the impact of a rural development project on the lives of people.

Last week while visiting the IFAD-funded Central Kenya Dry Area Smallholder Community Services Development Project and Mount Kenya East Pilot Project for Natural Resources Management, I had the privilege to meet inspiring and successful women such as Jane Njaguara, Lizz Wangari Bundi and the Wangu Environmental Conservation Women’s group.
As development workers we are always trying to get hold of data and statistics to show the impact of our work. I guess one of the most important statistics is how rural development projects have transformed the lives of poor rural people and their communities, and how these interventions have managed to bring economic viability to the rural space by providing profitable on and off-farm employment, minimizing migration from rural to urban areas and providing attractive employment opportunities for young people, so that they stay in rural areas and join the active work force.

Sometimes, numbers speak louder than words. Six years ago, the Kenya Women Finance Trust (KWFT) was losing around US$290,000 a year. By 2006, it was posting annual profits of US$1.87 million and changing the lives of more than 100,000 poor women. By any standard, this is a remarkable turnaround. But behind the numbers lies an even more remarkable story.

Smallholder farmers living in the buffer zone around the Mount Kenya National Park and Forest Reserve have struggled for years with the elephants that regularly invade their land and destroy their crops. An IFAD-supported project will help strengthen efforts already being made by the Kenya Wildlife Services to find ways of protecting wildlife and farming communities, and the natural resources that both depend upon.

Recharging Mount Kenya, the country’s largest water tower Mount Kenya is a vital source of water for the area’s agriculture, fisheries and livestock production and is strategic to the country’s economic development. But environmental degradation and changes in climate are threatening the mountain that is the country’s ‘largest water tower’. Protecting the environment has become a priority for the government and for local communities. An IFAD-funded project is supporting their efforts to restore vegetation cover, conserve water catchments and sources, and improve farming practices.