Why Community Engagement is key to Succeed in International Development

For over 20 years I have observed and learnt about community engagement initiatives through the lenses of global interventions introduced by development partners with keen interest on education, health and environment through a sample of interventions being implemented in African communities.

Hundreds of billions of dollars have been pumped into Global Health interventions designed in the global west with zero input from the affected communities.

Designing a global health intervention should be done with primary consideration of the narratives that shape the communities. Global health continues to suffers from fatal design flaws ending up with spurious surprising data fundamentally questioning the targeted communities.

Most researchers and scientists in the global west assume the supply chain ends when their interventions hit the global south, yet the true last mile is the invisible territory between a clinical solution and a human belief system. A human belief system that has been the building stone of cohesive communities, a narrative that is a strange phenomenon in the west.

One must invest time to understand the driving forces that make communities believe in their traditions. If a community perceives an illness through a spiritual or cultural lens, then a purely chemical solution will be erroneous.

One of the most expensive mistake that is frequently made is that of treating cultural anthropology as a soft skill rather than the core of implementation. It will not matter how sophisticated your intervention is, as long as it collides with culture, there will be fundamental clashes and culture will most definitely win at the expense of the millions of dollars invested.

Public health interventions must must consider behavior change through community participatory design and ideation as priority.

Great scientific interventions that ignored cultural knowledge fail. Science dictates how a pathogen moves, but culture dictates whether a cure will spread and have positive or negative impact.

Intersecting indigenous knowledge with global health science through bridging a narrative that centers the stories people tell about their bodies, yields in transforming passive beneficiaries into active partners.

Investment in development initiatives must be centered around trust. Story telling is a powerful mode of communication at community level that has worked for interventions that have stood the test of time. We must start treating community members as key stakeholders in interventions that target them and not merely as beneficiaries.

Many health care solutions being dumped to communities end up in home storage and wasted away. Some vaccines sit in warehouses to their expiry because the interventions ignored cultural sensitivities of building community acceptance.

I translate knowledge to sit well within anthropological realities. From evidentiary science to policy, to cultural narratives that transform communities.

On the heels of Kenya’s E-Mobility Policy Driving Force innovations.

The National Electric Mobility Policy, sets a framework to accelerate the transition to electric transport, reduce reliance on imported petroleum, strengthen energy security and cut greenhouse gas emissions. The policy came through a demand driven initiative that has helped the government to think the future of e-mobility.

Kenya's e-mobility sector is gaining traction with several innovations and financing models worth noting:

1. Electric Vehicle Assembly: Companies like Rideence Africa and BasiGo are assembling electric vans and buses locally using Chinese made kits. This approach reduces costs and makes EVs more affordable. There is demand for local manufacturing to accelerate job creation.

2. E-Motorcycles: Startups like Roam and Kiri Electric are popularizing electric motorcycles, with features like battery swapping and affordable pricing. Kiri Electric's motorcycles have a range of 70-80 km and cost around Ksh 185,000 without the battery. There is need to explore local manufacturing to accelerate growth.

3. Battery Swapping: Ecobodaa's battery swapping technology allows riders to swap batteries in minutes, reducing downtime and costs. Penetration to the peri-urban and rural areas will be a revolution that will ease transportation.

Companies like Rideence and BasiGo offer innovative financing options, such as pay-as-you-drive and lease-to-own models, making EVs more accessible to operators. Local banks are still struggling to offer competitive financing options.

Private sector players and consumers at large point to Government Incentives as a right to accelerate growth. The Kenyan government has introduced policies like zero-rating VAT on electric buses and motorcycles, and reducing excise duty on lithium-ion batteries, to encourage EV adoption, yet these incentives are seasonal dictated by annual fiscal policy making predictability a challenge as an incentive for investment.

On the other side of accelerated growth is the Charging Infrastructure: Companies like ChargeNet Kenya and Dowgate Properties are investing in charging stations, with plans to expand across the country. The energy regulatory authority and Kenya Power and Lighting Company can do more to ensure stability and predictability.

Partnerships across board are the engine that will power the e-mobility revolution. Collaborations between local and international companies, like Siemens Stiftung and GIZ, are driving innovation and growth in Kenya's e-mobility sector.

These developments are expected to drive growth for Kenya's e-mobility. The government has fallen short of the target of 5% of annual EVs by 2025. There are approximately 24,754 EVs registered according to NTSA figures released in February 2026 representing a 0.2% to 1.62% of the target. The majority of these registrations are electric motorcycles (roughly 90%), with a smaller, growing share of electric tuk-tuks, cars, and buses.

Public Service Emerging Leaders Fellowship Impact Report Launch

 I was honoured to join other notable Kenyans, Leaders, Commissioners of the Public Service Commission, Public Service Emerging Leaders Fellows in a colourful
launch of the Public Service Emerging Leaders Fellowship (PSELF) Impact Report which was graced by Her Excellency Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former President of the Republic of Liberia.

The PSELF Impact Report, christened “The Leadership Dividend: Impact from the Ground Up” traces the early gains of value-based leadership in Kenya’s public service underpinned by mentorship.

The data from first cohort of 51 fellows across 46 Counties and 26 State Departments is staggering:

- 297% ROI.
- Case processing times cut by 42% (Correctional Services).
- Education paperwork reduced by 57%.
- 62 new cross-ministerial collaborations.

Before the fellowship, only 16% of these young officers planned on a lifelong career in public service compared to the current 57% who now desire to expand in public service.

One fellow was promoted to Head of Talent Management just two months after finishing merited because of proven leadership.

The Public Service Commission - Kenya, Emerging Public Leaders (co-founded by H.E Ellen Johnson Sirleaf), and Emerging Leaders Foundation-Africa (ELF-Africa) built a model that works.

Africa does not lack leaders; Africa is lacking in servant and value-based leaders. There is need to intentionally as a matter of policy, invest in mentorship, deliberately have shadowing programs at all levels of Government to ensure that we are building a futuristic public service that captures not only the aspirations and dreams of the next generation of leaders but that which truly serves its citizens guided by a strong principles of values to the people and country.

Shaping a prosperous common future is our collective responsibility

19 years ago on Feb. 10, 2007, then-Senator Barack Obama announced his candidacy for president on a bitterly cold day in Springfield Illinois. That’s a past that became a future that continues to inspire generations.

In his 2007 speech, President Obama called on each generation to rise up and answer the call to create change.

President Obama called on us to believe in hope in the face of despair, to stand together in the face of politics that try to divide us, and to find ways to disagree without being disagreeable.

While Obama’s message may not resonate well to those who feel opposed to him, it reverberates to us to reflect on the type of political bickering that goes on in our backyards.

That the politics of ethnic balkanization, the politics of hate, the politics of cartels hell bent in getting their turn to squander public resources, the politics of the most corrupt among us being given a chance to lead, the politics of spite for those on the opposing side, the politics that kill those that want accountability, that politics of killing the young generation will finally lead us to a very dangerous future.

We must all agree that we have individual responsibility to shape prosperity for our country and continent. That prosperity must start with visionary and servant leadership for us all to move into the future where there is dignity for all.

The Trump Administration is ending Aid that it says saves Lives

The withdrawal of USAID and other NGOs from the health sector in Africa has had significant and far-reaching effects.

Many health facilities have shut down or reduced services, affecting HIV treatment, maternal and child health, and pharmaceutical supply chains. In Kenya, access to HIV treatment, maternal medicine, and contraceptives has plunged in some counties.

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned this could lead to disease outbreaks and growing hunger.

The economic impact is severe, with aid cuts potentially reducing Gross National Income (GNI) by over 1% in 23 African economies. Eight nations face losses of 3% or more.

Millions face food insecurity, and food aid services have closed, exacerbating hunger. In South Sudan, mothers and children have died after losing access to life-saving HIV medication.

Many NGOs have reduced staff or ceased activities, decreasing services to beneficiaries. In Cameroon, NGOs saw a 40-70% decrease in external funding, affecting food aid, healthcare, and education.

The focus on sustainable financing is critical with co-funding models in complimentary efforts between NGOs and Governments to sustain essential initiatives. It is important for African governments to increase domestic health funding and reclaim public health management from NGOs. There is need for zero tolerance to corruption with the wasted resources being channeled to the most important development initiatives on which human survival depends.

Governments in Africa have capacity to sustain themselves away from dependency on donors and unsustainable loans from Breton wood institutions.

Rwanda is a good example of maintaining staffing levels and health services through sustained public investment and other African Governments can follow this example.

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The Trump Administration is Ending Aid that it says saves Lives