Esther Mwaura-Muiru introduces two women’s self help groups in Kenya and asks why the contribution of thousands of grassroots organisations are not recognized in helping to achieve the Millennium Devolvement Goals.

It is absolutely clear that the trend the debate on the Millennium Devolvement Goals (MDGs) is taking will have a significant influence on policies and resource allocation in every corner of the world for the next several years. Many national governments are already using the MDGs as the basis for developing policies while development agencies are focusing their resources on institutions and efforts that demonstrate contributions to the targets of the MDGs. While this trend is not necessary bad, there are a number of questions that still remain unclear to many grassroots communities.

These questions include:

Is the MDG framework an exhaustive tool to address inequality between the rich and poor as well as gender disparities? Will the framework assist the world in eradicating extreme poverty? (The majority of poor are women living in urban slums and interior rural areas where accessibility is limited.) One other pertinent question that ultimately must be addressed is whose development and with whom are we talking about? Are the MDGs just one more buzz-word among development agencies that will soon fizzle out ?

Five years since the debate on MDGs kicked off, the language is still very much within development institutions and government offices at the national level. Therefore, it is too much to expect collective efforts that also bring particularly grassroots communities on board in the debate unless deliberate effort is made to unpack and share this language. The irony is that while many agencies and governments are gearing themselves to the development of programmes and tools that will help them account for their contribution to achieving the MDGs, many of the grassroots communities are busy contributing to the set targets oblivious of the ongoing debates.

Consider Tuelewane and Mathare, self-help groups both located in the sprawling Nairobi Mathare slums. These two women self-help groups reclaimed abandoned public toilets over seven years ago. The group has an adjacent water point from which they sell water to the public. Today this project provides several households with access to proper sanitation, clean drinking water and substantial incomes to tens of households, all from resources generated by charging for these facilities.

These women are also members of Mathare Mothers Development Centre that undertakes various capacity building initiatives that benefit communities in Mathare slums, provide entrepreneurship skills to orphaned girls of 13-19 years old, give home care to approximately 400 sick, and provide day care shelter to infants. In addition, these women have formed coalitions and contribute daily savings to buy land with the hope that they will one day provide decent housing to their families. The Mathare Mothers Development Centre spearheaded implementation of the local-to-local dialogue that brings together government officials with local communities to discuss challenges of existing governance structures.

Essentially, these women’s groups are addressing their development holistically. It is needless to say that there are thousands of such many “invisible” innovations all over the world. The experience of GROOTS Kenya in partnering with hundreds of self help groups of women in Mathare makes us convinced that its time that the MDG debate considers grassroots communities.

The return for such investment includes the fact that governments and development agencies will have a credible base to allocate resources to upscale appropriate community driven solutions that are already ongoing. National reports on the MDGs may not be taking into account some of these remote contributions that continue to improve the lives of many people in the slums and are owned by the poor people themselves.

* Esther Mwaura-Muiru works for GROOTS Kenya ([email protected])

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