Israel-Kenya Development Cooperation

I traveled southeast from Nairobi 210 km on the highway to Mombasa and 16 km along a winding, rutted dirt road to the Nairobi University - Kibwezi Irrigation Project. Today KIP is a green and fertile patch, 40 hectares of experimental irrigation farm in the middle of semi-arid, red-earthed, vegetable-growing country on the Yatta Plateau. The farm is surrounded by a solar-powered electrified fence to keep the baboons from being tempted by the ripe corn, bananas, karela, okra, tomatoes, grapes, paprika, cucumbers, watermelon, spinach, honeydew melon...

Established in 1991 and funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and MASHAV as a pilot project, during which time Israeli agricultural advisor Eli Barak spent four years there on a long-term mission nurturing the initial 10 irrigated hectares, it entered Phase II in 1994 with the establishment of an extension system. Uri Ben-Eli is the current Israeli agricultural advisor and extension expert on a two-year mission, a man with a special fondness for every centimetre of KIP who takes pride in the growth of the crops and abilities of the staff. Chris Mukindia (CINADCO, 1992, and employed today by Nairobi University), the Kenyan project manager who sees to the daily workings of the farm and staff of 200 (including field workers), disclosed that yields are well above national average.

I arrived on the last day of a three-week on-the-spot (OTS) course, Methodology of Extension, Group Formation and Motivation, given by Israelis Ali Bialer and Dov Orian. We sat in the comfortable, brand new classroom finished just the day before the start of the course. The participants sleep in the dormitories at the training college of Nairobi University several kilometres away. It is difficult to leave families and responsibilities for three whole weeks, sit in a classroom and concentrate for up to 10 hours a day, but the complete attention to the studies at hand and enthusiasm all 30 felt was palpable.

I spent the day listening to project reports by groups of four or five participants. At the beginning of the presentations, Ali Bialer, consultant in rural development and extension and a farmer back home in Moshav Kfar Yecheskel, told the group that since the time available for preparation was so short they weren't expected to be perfect, just the best they could be. The class cheered.

The first group presented a two-year theoretical plan in which extension workers help 25 farmers with permanent land or a minimum five-year leasehold contract, who have permanent irrigation water and who would grow brinjal (small eggplant) for export, learn how to improve their farming skills and increase their output. Kinoti, Njue, Ngare and Amos took turns presenting different aspects of the month-by-month extension work, from advising the farmer which seed to buy in the last week of July and preparing the nursery in August and plowing, planting, watering, mulching, weeding, thinning, controlling pests, preparing the land of the main field with furrows, applying manure and fertilizer, ceasing watering to allow seedling to adjust to the harsher conditions of the field, transplanting, top dressing, replenishing nutrients in the soil, monitoring the market, harvesting, packaging and selling, to the next year's purchase of seed and preparation of the nursery, etc....when the farmer already has some experience. The goal: to motivate the farmer to achieve a change in customary practise and increase the quality and quantity of production.

There was a check list: attitude, knowledge, skills, means and discussion in the group about whether the farmers display positive or negative abilities in each activity. The extension worker must train farmers to monitor the market, harvesting and selling for the highest price when brinjals are scarce. The group members all had their specific roles, with Njare putting brinjals of different sizes and colours on the table for all to see, and discussing the export quality requirement in which the vegetable must be disease-free, well formed, medium sized and of deep purple colour. There was some criticism of group members for sitting too much during presentation, taking too much time, not using the pointer. Moses Wagiita thought they had not discussed pests enough, but it was all done in good spirit and meant to sharpen their extension skills. Uri Ben-Eli remarked that the farmer wants to know how much fertilizer costs, transportation costs and how much money he will make! Added Dov Orian, consultant on organization and management and in the OTS course teaching extension workers how to help farmers organize and manage their farm production: "Never assume you know what the farmer is thinking even if you do. Always spell it out!"

Moses Wagiita, Big Moses to all, a graduate of a course in extension methodology in Israel in 1992 at CINADCO's Ruppin Institute, is Head Divisional Agricultural Extension Officer in Kibwezi District. He wanted his staff to participate all together in this on-the-spot course "so that we can all speak the same language." He participated in the OTS course himself and watched critically and proudly as the people he works with on a day-to-day basis attained more skills in communicating with local farmers in this area of little rainfall. Uri Ben-Eli says that at KIP they have tried various extension techniques, including giving prime seed to local farmers along with extension know how. Some took the seed and did not continue the extension relationship, some did and successfully increased their production. One farmer noted that with the extra money he made growing a fine crop of onions and selling the surplus on the market he was able to buy clothes for his children and send them to school.

Hundreds of local farmers, men and women, many with children and babies, began arriving by tractor and truck in the morning hours for the Closing Ceremony of the On-the-Spot Course. They had been invited as a way of encouraging them to explore the possibilities available at the farm. There was a graduation ceremony for the course, with the participation of VIPs from the University of Nairobi, College of Agriculture and Veterinary Sciences, Institute of Dryland Research, Development and Utilization, and Israeli Ambassador Menashe Zipori, who came all the way from the city for the day. Groups of dancers and a choir of schoolchildren in robes provided exciting entertainment!

I was particularly eager to speak to some farmers. That would be the test of our transfer of know-how, if indeed they received the benefit. Extension Officer Deborah Mukeka introduced me to one of "her" farmers: Farmer Ben Ngului came to the Kibwezi Irrigation Project to see it for himself. He moved from Mombasa and his job as a salaried clerk to the district just ten years ago in order to be his own boss and considers himself an experienced farmer. He had heard about the project but had never actually been here. Leaving his wife in charge of the farm, he made his long trek. During a tour of the farm, Deborah Mukeka reminded him that he was welcome to come visit anytime he wanted and ask questions.

Ben Ngului farms two hectares in the Kibwezi district of Kenya with his wife, seven children and four hired workers. He grows okra, onions, karela and ruthi (cucumbers) and when he has questions about seed species, planting, harvest timing or nematodes which strike the roots of his karela in the rainy season he turns to the local extension service of the Ministry of Agriculture for help. There Deborah Mukeka, a Division Crops Officer for the extension service in Kibwezi District for the past four years, offers practical solutions for local farming problems. She was one of the participants practising her communication skills these 3 weeks in the on-the-spot course with 30 colleagues, half from Moses Wagiita's extension service office and half agricultural extension personnel employed by KIP.

I reached Kisumu, at the eastern edge of Lake Victoria, by minivan with Yonatan Meidan, Second Secretary of the Israeli Embassy, and three members of the Executive Committee of the Shalom Club: National Chairperson Georginah Munene (Afro-Asian Institute, 1984), Esther Wamera (Afro-Asian Institute, 1978 and 1982), Assistant Treasurer and active member since 1978 when the Shalom Club was still the Shalom Cooperative (see Shalom Magazine 1989-2), and Caleb Owang (Afro-Asian Institute, 1986), Secretary. Along the way I came to realize the difficulties of organizing a visit to graduates in outlying areas of the country. We did manage to meet successfully with eleven graduates and other members of the Shalom Club Western District. Dr. John Chawiyah, who studied for his MA degree in Public Health at Hadassah Hospital in 1983-4, took us to his private practise, the "Jerusalem Health Service," in a poor area of Kisumu. As we all crowded into his office he explained that he does community outreach, providing information on family planning, malaria and AIDS prevention everyday from 8am to 8pm. Dr. M. A. Oluoch (Hadassah, 1962-67), whose "Shalom Clinic" is not far away, reminded me of an article published in Shalom Magazine (1980-2) describing his studies, his thesis and his work over the years. He began by treating patients in Nairobi, the capital, but moved to this rural sugar growing zone long ago "to provide medical attention to those less fortunate." Here in Kisumu he has been providing quality medical treatment for 25 years!

In Kakamega the next day we had a meeting with local Shalom Club members, where I met Humphry (MCTC, 1988) and Joyce Odenyi. Today he is provincial program officer for early childhood education and she is a primary school teacher. Joseph Odwiambo, of the District Livestock Office, participated in a 1985 on-the-spot course in beekeeping extension and today, in charge of beekeeping extension, he does his extension via motorbike. Caleb Jumba (Afro-Asian Institute, 1981), Branch Secretary of the Kenya Building and Construction Workers Union of Western Province and provincial representative to the Shalom Club, invited us to visit his home, where the church choir greeted us with song. The Vihiga village women's handicraft cooperative showed off their beautiful wares which they indicated "are not easy to market in Nairobi." It occurred to me that this group could perhaps benefit from advise in organization of income generating projects as given by MCTC. Jumba's wife Margaret prepared a feast and she and her friends showed me how the traditional ugali (corn flour porridge) dish is prepared, stirred vigorously over a wood fire in a deep pot. I felt so privileged and we had such fun even though there was a language barrier.

With regret, as a drizzling rain began at dusk, we left for Nairobi that evening.

Ze'ev Carmi, Israeli agricultural adviser to the National Youth Service Field Unit at Yatta, accompanied me on a visit there. The National Youth Service of Kenya is a paramilitary organization providing vocational training in various areas, with an emphasis on agriculture, to some 5,000 young men and women every year. Uniformed, with military ranks and great military bearing but no arms, the youths are picked each year from the best of the applicants nation-wide. While learning agricultural skills and trades such as auto mechanics and road engineering they develop a spirit of national development. In a country of 27 tribal affiliations, where loyalties have occasionally been local more than national, this is an important message. And equally important in a country of growing unemployment is to equip these young people with skills allowing them to build their own futures while they build the nation's future.

My visit fell during Christmas vacation - Commander of Yatta School of Agriculture and Field Unit Joseph Mutanga Nzola (affectionately known as 24 Hours because of his diligent work habits) met us with some of his staff who remained at Yatta especially for my visit. There I met James Tembur, Kwalif Hassan, Alex Mongoi, Lynne Onyango, Joseph Bwire, Francis Wachira, Mathew Wambua and Robert Kirago, deputy to 24 Hours.

James Tembur, a good example of the high calibre of the NYS staff, had been teaching at the NYS for several years after attaining his BSc. In 1992 the former Israeli agricultural adviser, David Cohen, arranged for him to participate in the International Course on Agricultural Engineering in Small-Scale Farming at the Volcani Institute in Israel, a broad-based course on crop and animal production with some instruction in computers. There the participants wrote project reports like Tembur's on the Use of Cultured Rhizobabia (that's bean bacteria to the lay person). James Tembur pointed out that he felt he had acquired useful knowledge in Israel, particularly in planning. Tembur has begun a poultry project with farmers in the area, in addition to his duties as instructor and farm manager. Thus far they have a 2% mortality rate (excellent) under intensive management using a deep litter system, with the culls being sold cheaply to local farmers. And just last weekend, he said, a local farmer expressed interest in obtaining banana suckers (baby banana plants) after seeing the improved Israeli variety growing so successfully at Yatta. In fact, they are available to local farmers on easy terms.

I walked around with the group, visiting the poultry shed, the zero grazing milk cow barn, the meteorological station measuring wind and water, and saw rabbits being raised for meat (a cheap and relatively easy way for farmers to generate income), the tomato nursery where the young plants were ready for transplantation, the passion fruit growing on the vines, the bananas growing tall from Israeli suckers and the watermelons in the field. All of this is raised by the youths, aged 17-22, learning to grow the food that will feed their nation. A recent rain storm had flattened some of the corn - Ze'ev agreed with 24 Hours and Deputy Robert Kirago that it would be necessary to work day and night to pick that corn, ripe as it was for market - before the 60,000 cobs withered on the stalks in the plot.

A problem had arisen because of the Christmas season: The canning factory which had shown interest in buying the corn had suddenly and unexpectedly closed for a two-week holiday just at the moment of its ripening. Ze'ev Carmi held an impromptu emergency discussion with the staff about what to do. Two volunteered to load a van with corn and go into every shop in Nairobi to get orders. Ze'ev said that a grower with no market, well ... he shook his head. That is part of being a successful farmer: growing and harvesting at the time when there is a market and having binding contracts with factories, a lesson to be learned!

By the way, Ze'ev requested two years' meteorological information from 24 Hours - he said that a commercial Israeli seed company was interested in finding out if it might viably grow seeds in Kenya using NYS expertise. The same company is investigating the Kibwezi farm too.

The next day in an interview, Major Langat, head of the parastatal NYS nation-wide, emphasized that since 1990 the NYS program has been making money instead of being in deficit: of the 5,367,000 Kenyan shillings invested by the government in the NYS last year, 6,935,000 was returned in earnings. And still, as with any government the world over, he has to fight for his yearly budget.

Israel has provided assistance in the form of advanced training for individual NYS personnel (and for Kenyans in many areas of development) since 1963 when Kenya attained independence. In 1985, Major Langat was in Israel to visit vocational training institutes and agricultural settlements. Thereafter, since 1988 there have been courses especially designed for NYS staff in Israel as well as on-the-spot courses given at the NYS field unit at Yatta. In Israel Major Langat was impressed by the close cooperation between the various university agricultural researchers, the Ministry of Agriculture extension workers and the farmers. He would like to see this emulated in Kenya. Major Langat noted that NYS has a strong effect on the youth who spend their formative years in the service. When they leave, they often stay in touch with their instructors. These youth are sought after as employees because on the whole they have learned to be disciplined and focused.

That afternoon I met with Alice Abok, who attended a course on Voluntary Organizations at MCTC last year. She has been working for the YWCA in Kenya since 1987 and is National Deputy General Secretary implementing policy, training staff and addressing staff-volunteer relationships. She came to Israel with a great deal of experience and brought home with her a better perspective of "what is expected of volunteers and what we can do to retain them. We must use the abilities of volunteers." She told me she recently visited the Kiere women's group in Meru which is involved in a credit scheme. Members receive individual loans from the YWCA through group guarantee for individual projects. Using a participatory evaluation system, they have achieved excellent results. As they sit in a circle with the locally elected chairlady introducing projects, they break down hierarchical stereotypes and learn assertiveness. One particular woman, Elizabeth Mwangi, took a loan which enabled her to repair the family vehicle which she in turn used to employ her husband to taxi people around, earned money, expanded her charcoal business and paid back the loan. Alice Abok emphasized that 99% of the loans are repaid. In Kisumu six women's groups decided to replicate this system!

From there I made my way to Gertrude's Garden Children's Hospital to meet Florence Mangula, just back from training in Community and Primary Medicine at Kaplan Hospital in Israel, Nefrida Bukachi, senior nurse in the intensive care unit, who was interviewed for Shalom Magazine 1994-2 when she participated in a course on Paediatric Nursing in the Community and in the Hospital, and Lydia Obonyo, who studied Paediatric Nursing at Beilinson Hospital in 1994. While Gertrude's Garden Children's Hospital is an established, private hospital, it has 10 free beds available to those who cannot pay in addition to its 70 other beds. In a country with no national health system, they treat those with private health insurance, others who pay out of their pocket or are company plan insurance holders (like Kenya Power and Lighting Co.), but they never turn anyone away because they can't pay.

The hospital is interested in keeping its staff up-to-date and well trained: Ten Gertrude nurses have studied in Israel so far. Each is encouraged to give talks to the staff on speciality subjects. Nefrida Bukachi, who was particularly interested in better staff communication and relations with parents and patients, is in-service education coordinator and has helped arrange other talks on child abuse, community involvement and various clinical and paediatric problems. Florence Mangula, a paediatric nurse for 15 years with Intensive Care Unit training and abundant experience, is preparing her lecture on primary health and community health, using Israel's Well Baby Clinics as an example. Lydia Obonyo wrote a project thesis about modern technology when she was in Israel and is ready and eager to implement what she learned.

Yonatan Meidan, Georginah Munene and I travelled to Embu, in the Mt. Kenya region, for a meeting with Shalom Club members. In the Provincial Commissioner's office we met with Assistant Provincial Commissioner Edward Mwangi Irungu and District Commissioner Paulo Olando, I learned about the governmental organization which divides each province into districts, each with its own chain of command. Since the Eastern Province is immense, stretching from the arid north to the fertile middle region and the semi-arid area around Kibwezi, I grasped how hard it is to get together for meetings. With DC Olando and the staff members we discussed Israel's framework for cooperation. It is so important that they be aware of possibilities for training. These are the people who would actually recommend candidates for training courses in various subjects.

Daniel Kiambia Marete and David Matumbi, extension officers in beekeeping in Meru, a nearby town, who participated in courses in Beekeeping and Extension Methodology at CINADCO's Ruppin Institute in Israel in 1983 and 1981 respectively, took the day off to visit with us. They told us of the social factors involved in extension - working with traditionally oriented people on the whole where the women beekeepers refuse to communicate with a male extension person or won't wear the trousered but essential protective coverall worn by modern beekeepers. Daniel Marete therefore evaded these rules by training female extension people and having them convey the information and having them make a game of trying on the coveralls together in private to see how they felt. David Matumbi explained the importance of the training he received in Israel and the difficulties of extension work with illiterate farmers who have no means with which to buy the recommended equipment. He teaches field staff who in turn teach methodology to farmers. He also supervises field staff on visits to farmers. He organizes the farmers into groups, sometimes coaxing them to share coveralls to save money. "Younger women," he added, "are more amenable to accepting training from men." These two enterprising and lively men regaled us for an hour, telling us about beekeeping, how they became extension workers, bee feeding, beehives (pros and cons of traditional versus modern) and the beekeeping extension workers' association, until we regretfully had to take our leave.

Since we were in the neighbourhood we paid an impromptu call on E. A. Miron, Principal of the Embu Agricultural Staff Training College of the Ministry of Agriculture, where Israeli instructors gave on-the-spot courses in Extension Methodology held in 1993 and 1994. Participants, front line extension workers, came from all over the country to learn how to work more effectively and efficiently with farmers in horticulture and animal production. While I was busy taking notes on what had been, Yonatan Meidan and Principal Miron were involved in planning the next OTS courses - recently acquired computers may offer a subject for the future: Computers in Agriculture and Extension Methodology.

Driving back to Nairobi past rice fields and lush scenery, we stopped at a roadside stand to buy ripe pawpaw (papaya) and rice in bags from local farmers.

I was fortunate to have time to visit a Nairobi slum project in Korogocho, home to 250,000 people out of a total city population of some 2 million. This is a project aided by UNICEF, unrelated to Israel, for cooperative organization to clean up the neighbourhood, a vast area of shacks, muddy paths and unemployment. I spent three hours touring with a group of up-beat, able young cooperators who have helped organize the "villages" within Korogocho where there are voluntary public toilet building and drain clean-up projects and incredibly ingenious income-generating projects: dress making, carpentry, bottle collection-wash-sell back to factory, organic fertilizer made from vegetable bits and water selling. At each village I was greeted in song by enthusiastic men and women eager to show off their abilities and proud of what they have achieved. The words of the songs they sang touched me: "We can't sleep, we have so many more challenges to confront." They actually spoke that way: "We finish one project and ask ourselves what next?"

That evening I attended a Shalom Club meeting organized at a large, downtown Nairobi hotel. There I met 150 graduates of Israeli training courses, all recipients of Shalom Magazine. Each speaker in turn addressed the group with "Shalom Everyone." There I personally met the trade unionists and cooperative organizers, the agricultural extension workers, the doctors and nurses, the early childhood educators and teachers of adult literacy, scientists and community workers - the Kenyan developers I had travelled to Africa to meet. I met a woman who had studied health administration at Haifa University and now works with refugees, a man who organized a dairy cooperative in his village and the Senior Deputy Secretary General of KUDEIHA Workers (Kenya Union of Domestic, Hotels, Educational Institutions, Hospitals and Allied Workers) Wilson Maina Macharia. I did not catch everyone's name nor did I manage to visit all who offered hospitality. I have to save something for the next time!

The Shalom Club Executive Committee carefully orchestrated the event through hard work, many phone calls and letters. Ambassador Menashe Zipori addressed the audience as did the Honourable A. K. Mohamed Ali, Member of Parliament and Assistant Minister of Labour and Manpower Development. It was a great success.

Afterward I went on a wildlike safari to visit Maasai Mara, the famous nature reserve, before returning home. The driver of the minibus, Wanjau, told me that his wife was at home looking after their baby boy. When I asked what kind of medical services he has, he explained that he belongs to a company with a health plan: He takes his little boy to Gertrude's Garden Children's Hospital!

The day after I returned home to Jerusalem, Carey Okal Ombura, lecturer in spacial planning within urban areas in the School of Engineering at Moi University in Eldoret, Kenya, came to visit me in my office. He is just finishing his PhD (entitled: Towards an Environmental Planning Approach in Urban Industrial Siting and Operations in Kenya) in the Netherlands and was visiting Israel within the framework of NIRP (Netherlands-Israel Development Research Program). He is also the son of a 1964 graduate of MCTC. His mother, Martha Ombura, studied early childhood education when he himself was small and upon returning to her town of Oyugis continued her work as community development assistant in the Ministry of Culture and Social Services, resource person and expert on setting up kindergartens. He seemed to embody the continuity of the past, present and future of Israel-Kenya development cooperation.

In the words of Uri Ben-Eli: "I know that I can't save the world, I can't save Africa, not even Kenya, but if the farmers of the Kibwezi district grow enough food and have enough money to buy their children shoes and send them to school, then I will have done something positive."

I met the graduates of training programs, Kenyan developers, the people who encourage them to continue their education and train abroad, I saw the institutes and workplaces where they spend their working lives, I visited villages and towns, and I spoke with those who will in the future receive training as well as with the ordinary people who don't pay much attention to world news and probably are not aware of the Israeli connection (the farmer, the minivan driver), but who do indeed receive an end benefit from Israeli training. It is really memorable and extraordinary to be a part of all this development.