The main objective of this project is to mainstream cooking policy frameworks and advocate for increased budget allocation for implementation of clean cooking programs. The long term goal of the project is to contribute to improved service provision by government and private sector through inclusive policies and budgets and to facilitate an enabling environment for increased adoption of clean cook stores and fuels in Kenya .

Partner - SNV (Netherlands Development Organization)

Beneficiaries -Kitui, Kilifi and Kiambu Counties.

GROOTS Kenya in partnership with Equal Measures 2030 is working with grassroots women and relevant stakeholders in Kenya to advocate for gender responsive Medium Term Plans and County Integrated Development Plans. Both the MTP111 and CIDPs are currently under development.  Gender Equality Champions trained under this project are spearheading community-led monitoring of the implementation using an agreed set of indicators.

To kick start the project, GROOTS Kenya developed the SDGs Monitoring Framework to equip grassroots women and their communities with the capacity and evidence to monitor progress on the localization of agenda 2030 by national and local governments with a key focus on gender equality.

GROOTS Kenya further trained 42 trainers of trainers who will in turn train other community members on the SDGs to create a critical mass of gender equality champions in Kiambu, Kakamega and Laikipia Counties.

The champions have already selected 12 goals, 23 targets and 25 indicators to monitor, against the 17 global goals, 169 targets and 232 indicators. Their selections are based on the priority needs within their communities.

The data collected will be the basis on which the advocacy begins.

Partners-EQUAL MEASURES

Beneficiaries - 5 counties: Kitui, Nakuru, Laikipia, Kiambu and Kakamega.

Through three projects, Women Political Representation Enhanced, Strengthening Electoral Processes in Kenya and Gender Implementation Tracking, GROOTS Kenya aims to contribute to enhanced gender equality through an increased proportion of women in elective positions at the county and national levels by the end of the 2017 General Elections in Kenya. This is done through a grassroots- led demand for an enabling political environment, focusing on accountability within popular political parties in the counties of Kiambu, Laikipia and Kakamega.

The projects also focus on the creation of a positive image of women leadership at the grassroots level, reduction of electoral violence against women through use of community watchdogs and popularizing of women candidates nominated by political parties through the champions for transformative leadership model.

Launched in 2014, the Gender Equality Implementation Tracking is a grassroots women led initiative that monitors implementation of gender in Kiambu, Laikipia and Kakamega by grassroots women or champions who then help to influence policy and decision making.

The projects are supported by We Effect, UN Women and the European Union.

In 2012 GROOTS Kenya developed the well documented Community-led Public Land Mapping model, with an aim of putting local communities at the forefront to safeguard the much threatened public land in Kenya. The model has since been piloted in 3 sub counties of Lari (Kiambu), Kigumo (Muranga), Kiharu(Muranga). The model involve targeted & sustained civic education to increase citizen pressure for successful land reform, a community led research on the level of awareness on legal and policy framework in the land sector, local community skills development on ICT, digital mapping of all public land in selected sub counties, development of a digital inventory of public land and maps, ongoing community led advocacy on proper & participatory management and utilization of all identified and documented public land by the state. This model has since been formerly adopted by Muranga County and piloted in two sub counties.

The National land Commission  & the World Bank has acknowledged it as an informatory model in the development of an inventory for Kenya. The model has been documented by GROOTS Kenya in the Taking action, community reference book, by university of Copenhagen & Denmark.

The project has since 2011 received support from SIDA!

Empowering grassroots women to use technology to secure and safeguard public land

Illegal and irregular allocation of public land to those with resources and those in power has denied communities living in poor settings access to  quality public services, like heath, education, water, sanitation, market spaces, among others.

Public land grabbing is one of the major forms of corruption perpetuated by those bestowed with administration and management authority and  unfortunately the public has remain powerless. Women living in poverty and in margins of development shoulder the highest burden when public land is not used to provide essential public services.

The Kenya National Land Policy 2009 and 2010 Constitution of Kenya acknowledge the lack of a comprehensive inventory of public land as a major bottleneck. They also reckon the need for a participatory approach led by the National Land Commission to create such an inventory.

As a proactive initiative, GROOTS Kenya decided to empower grassroots women to provide leadership in developing a model that would be used by the country to undertake a participatory inventory of public land. First and foremost, the initiative ensured that a critical mass of community members, predominantly grassroots women, understood the role land plays in development and the process and status of land reform in Kenya.
Importantly, the project supported women and community leaders to take stock and record all the public land in their areas of residence. A select group was then nominated to undergo a technical training on the GIS using GPS and tablets to record. Their role was then to visit each and every piece of public land mapped and take all the coordinates. The information was finally transferred using Arc GIS software to create a digital map of this record.

Through this initiative, communities realized their role to protect illegal and irregular allocation of public land. This is evi-dent from the actions they have taken since to safeguard public land. Moreover, government and land experts appreciate the role and capacity of women who in turn are invited and recognized as leaders in their own rights. Last but not least, planners and decision makers have used the developed map to plan and budget effectively for development initiatives.

The project has progressively applied the Champions for transformative leadership model developed by GROOTS Kenya to pursue increased and enhanced women leadership and governance in Kenya. The model which was developed in 2008 is composed of a critical mass of organized groups of grassroots women, men & youth who passionately believe and sustainably champion for increased number and enhanced quality of women in elective, nominative and appointive leadership position.

The model strategically targets men’s support for gender equality as a core prerequisite to transformative development. To date the model has contributed to the election, nomination and appointment of grassroots women in decision-making platform such as the County Assemblies, County Executive, National and County committees, institutional boards as well as local administrators. The model is keen at developing the capacities of young girls from urban and rural poor communities through mentorship and skills development with an overall goal of building a transgenerational movement.

Through the model GROOTS Kenya has consistently supported the organized groups to drive demand for accountability from duty bearers. In line with this GROOTS Kenya developed a grassroots women-led Gender tracking framework & tool for counties. The tool has been piloted in Kakamega, Kiambu and Laikipia county in the agriculture, education, water sector. The tool is currently used to generate gender related data in regards to numbers and access to basic services for evidence based advocacy at the counties. The project has from time to time received support from UN Women, Kenya, UN Women-Fund for Gender Equality, Henrich Boll  Foundation (HBF), African Women Development Fund (AWDF),We effect, Diakonia Sweden, European Union & Huaroiu Commission & PACT Kenya.

Sixty seven percent of Africa’s population, estimated to be about 1.13 billion, now has a mobile phone, according to an article published by The Guardian in June 2015. The mobile penetration in the sub Saharan Africa region is expected to increase to 79 per-cent in 2020. But what does this rapid growth mean to mobile phone users, especially to grassroots women in rural areas?

Despite the persistent challenges, such as unreliable networks and lack of electricity, the enhanced spread of mobile phones has increased grassroots women’s ability to communicate, access information, network, advocate and engage in a more timely manner. This is absolutely an important step for rural communities and women, in particular, who had been marginalized due to poor infrastructure. Farmers can access information about market prices, farm inputs, etc. and even negotiate contracts without traveling long distances. Further, civil society organizations and governmental service providers currently explore ways to use mo-bile phone applications to provide technical advice to rural farmers.

It would be important to monitor more closely the impact of mobile phone and other technology projects on the economic and social development of rural populations

“Mulika Mwizi” is a basic telephone handset and the only likely communication technology that the majority of rural women farmers may own or have access to. The gadget which carries a Kiswahili connotation that literally translates to “spot the thief” is a basic handset that allows one to only make and receive calls and often has an additional feature of a light facility similar to a torch.

The lighting is essential as most rural areas are not connected to electricity. While Africa prides to have expanded exponentially telecommunication coverage to the low income people, the reach is unfortunately limited in quantities and quality to women and girls living in poverty.

In 2012, GROOTS Kenya decided to expand the level of technology accessible to women farmers. The organization believes that by increasing the capacity of women farmers to track successes and challenges would unleash their potential and inspire them to spur their own development and influence positive change around them. Under the project entitled “Accelerating rural women access to agricultural market and trade”, each of the 131 organized groups were provided with a computer tablet and impacted with knowledge on how to use the gadgets. The women use the application that was installed on the computer tablet to collect information from their group members about their enterprise performance and savings/incomes on a monthly basis.

As shown in the graphic, this information is automatically transferred to a web based management information system. A number of reports are  generated automatically and provide the women farmers with a comparative feedback on their achievements. Surprisingly, the women have not only used the technology provided by the project but have gone out of their way to upgrade to android personal handsets with additional income and knowledge gained.