A participatory rural appraisal saw the Nyota community in Kenya overturn commonly held assumptions about needs of the rural poor. Residents originally considered transportation and “roads” as their primary problem but, through a pair-wise ranking exercise, led by members of a BOP team from Cornell University, identified corruption as the most important, root problem in the community.

The Community

Nyota was resettled in 1973 to provide 2.5 acre homesteads/farms for black Kenyans. The area is relatively high (2258-2800 meters) and hilly with a few steep valleys and a few seasonal streams flowing southwards. Two tribes are dominant here — the Kikuyu and Kalenjin who fought in violent tribal clashes in the area in the early 1990s. Since then peace has been relatively stable. People depend on agriculture and livestock to earn income. The major cash crops in the area are pyrethrum and potatoes. High pyrethrum prices in the 1980s led to community reliance on the crop, but unreliable payments from the Pyrethrum Board of Kenya (PBK) -- a government-created parastatal organization -- has caused community suffering, especially from 2002 to present, and the current reliance on potato farming.

Nyota is not a rich area but, being in the highlands at the edge of the Rift Valley, it enjoys relatively reliable rains and fertile soil. Bonds between family and friends are powerful and regularly strengthened through working together, sharing meals and church-going. People are hardworking, but often times laugh and enjoy themselves in relaxation.

There are difficulties, however. There is only one health facility located in the settlement. While numerous primary schools are present within the settlement, the closest secondary school is in Keringet, a 40 minute Matatu ride from Muchorwi, if you can afford a Matatu. There is one tarmac road bisecting the settlement and linking the area to the nearby towns of Molo and Kiringet. A small trading center called Muchorwi has sprung up on the road at the edge of the settlement. Banking and postal services are lacking and can only be found in Muchorwi, some 45 minutes away by Matatu. The rest of the settlement is traversed by dirt tracks, some wide enough for the old trucks that come to fetch potatoes but many not much wider than the donkeys that regularly ply them.

Surface and underground water sources are found throughout the settlement and are generally reliable throughout the year. Although electric power lines cross the settlement area on their way elsewhere, the vast majority of residences and farms are not connected to the national grid and even the school directly below the power lines remains without electricity. Prohibitively high fees and terrible infrastructure management are to blame. A few businesses and homes in Muchorwi do have electricity but most Nyota residents use paraffin lamps, gas lamps, photovoltaics and car batteries for electricity in the home. Wood and charcoal are ubiquitous cooking and heating fuels, driving deforestation and erosion throughout the area.

The appraisal

The three-day Participatory Rural Appraisal, was held in Nyota on July 5-7, as part of an effort to create mutually-beneficial income-generating opportunities through partnerships between multinational corporations (MNCs) and Nyota-like BoP communities. The PRA was used to develop a greater understanding of the needs of the community. The Nyota settlement itself was originally chosen because the SC Johnson company, a partner in the Base of the Pyramid program at Cornell University, has a particular interest in pyrethrum, and Nyota has traditionally been a pyrethrum-growing area.

The engagement began with an introduction to key community members followed by a week-long homestay with two families in the region (Mama Salome and Mama Kimani). The community identified its strengths, resources, and challenges and outlined several potential solutions. Over 250 community members attended and participated.

When the community was first asked to identify the top problems stymieing community development, poor roads were top-of-mind. Lack of access to electricity, lack of markets for farm produce, and lack of clean water closely followed. However, working through each pair of problems identified and ranking each against every other, the community eventually ranked other concerns more highly and roads and transportation fell to 23rd on a list of 31 problems.

The top third of the community's problems emerged as: corruption, HIV/AIDS, agriculture product packaging laws, disease, technical knowledge, working capital, poverty, credit & collateral, low yields and deforestation.

It should be noted that a national campaign regarding corruption and a recent law, just now being enforced in the area, regarding potato packaging may have skewed the results slightly as these issues will have been top-of-mind. Nonetheless, they are clearly very important obstacles for the community, which might have otherwise gone under appreciated.

At the close of the three-day PRA work, after having identified and ranked their challenges/problems, the community and the BoP team brainstormed potential solutions. We grouped problems into related clusters to simplify, underline interrelations, and facilitate creation and discussion of potential solutions. The problem groupings discussed were:

• Technical Knowledge
• Health - Human Disease, Health Facilities
• Working Capital
• Farm Inputs, Pest and disease, high cost of inputs
• Fuel Wood, deforestation, erosion, fuel wood
• Population pressures, growth, youth unemployment
• Lack of Market Access
• Water quality
• Poor roads / transportation

A number of issues were also taken out of the discussion. While all of the community challenges identified are serious and deserve attention, we also needed to focus the discussion towards areas where new business opportunities could be an important component of the solution. The following were taken out.

• HIV/AIDS
• Corruption
• Produce Packaging Laws
• Secondary Schools
• Electricity (at a municipal level)
• Stock Theft
• Secondary School Drop Outs
• Drugs/Alcohol
• Community Apathy
• Cultural Norms

This article was written with material sourced from Justin DeKoszmovszky's PRA report which emerged from his work through the BOP Protocol Pilot team in Kenya in Summer 2005. Justin DeKoszmovszky completed the PRA Analysis with Catherine Burnett. He thanks Patrick Mburu, Elijah Kimani Wang’ombe, Mama Salome, James Kimani, the Pamoja Pioneers Self-Help Group, Richard Cheruiyot, and the more than 250 community members who participated in the workshops for their contributions to this work.