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Dairy farmers in Kenya struggle with low milk yields that fluctuate wildly from wet season to dry. An IFAD-funded programme in the south-west of the country is rehabilitating the dairy subsector by boosting milk yields, strengthening farmers’ organizations and bringing producers, transporters, processors and traders together to the benefit of all.

Improving access to water and community services is a good starting point for supporting the empowerment of rural women. Thanks to an IFAD-supported project, women in five districts of Kenya’s Central Province are enjoying new opportunities to improve their living conditions and the well-being of their families and to acquire income-generating skills. Project initiatives are helping shift traditional gender imbalances, as women slowly gain the ability to share more equally in available resources and development opportunities, and even begin taking on leadership roles within their communities.

Sometimes, numbers speak louder than words. Six years ago, the Kenya Women Finance Trust (KWFT) was losing around US$290,000 a year. By 2006, it was posting annual profits of US$1.87 million and changing the lives of more than 100,000 poor women. By any standard, this is a remarkable turnaround. But behind the numbers lies an even more remarkable story.

Smallholder farmers living in the buffer zone around the Mount Kenya National Park and Forest Reserve have struggled for years with the elephants that regularly invade their land and destroy their crops. An IFAD-supported project will help strengthen efforts already being made by the Kenya Wildlife Services to find ways of protecting wildlife and farming communities, and the natural resources that both depend upon.

Recharging Mount Kenya, the country’s largest water tower Mount Kenya is a vital source of water for the area’s agriculture, fisheries and livestock production and is strategic to the country’s economic development. But environmental degradation and changes in climate are threatening the mountain that is the country’s ‘largest water tower’. Protecting the environment has become a priority for the government and for local communities. An IFAD-funded project is supporting their efforts to restore vegetation cover, conserve water catchments and sources, and improve farming practices.

The deadly impact of AIDS has devastated the agricultural labour force of countries like Kenya. This video explores the way in which this 21st century plague is unravelling decades of social and economic development and robbing communities and families of workers who traditionally tended the land.

Anna Nangolol (meaning ‘born at the river') lives on the banks of what was a large river but which, she says, has been dry since around April 2003. The Turkana name droughts in a similar way to naming their children: associated to the situation at the time. She sees the current drought as being the same one as when the name was given back in 1999: ‘Kichutanak', meaning ‘it has swept everything, even wild animals.'

Trapped in a cycle of growing poverty, pastoral communities on the cross border region of Kenya, Ethiopia, and Uganda—known as the Karamojong Cluster—have become increasingly desperate in recent years. Inadequate representation in government, underpaid and understaffed security services, and poor civil administration mean they are losing livestock, livelihoods, and lifestyles. Tribal and ethnic conflict involves cattle raids and violence associated with the proliferation of small arms in the area. Raids on pastoral communities occur when the men of one community decide to acquire more livestock for restocking after they have been raided by another community. The possession of cattle reduces poverty and hunger and the number of cattle you own is used for ekimar , or the price a man must pay to take a bride.

"The Equator Prize is an important recognition of the work that Honey Care has been doing in partnership with the donor community," said Farouk Jiwa, General Manager of Honey Care. "Our company has a very simple vision that I know IFC shares. It's about people, the planet and profits. We believe that they can all co-exist and not be mutually exclusive." Honey Care was launched in 1999 by a group of socially responsible Kenyan businessmen who were seeking to capitalize on opportunities presented by Kenya's underdeveloped beekeeping sector—both as a way to launch a profitable new consumer product and to raise incomes of the country's rural poor.

"Its only a shepherd that knows what sheep needs more attention". Comments Mama Rukio, in a Baraza. She is referring to her role in the relief committee. Mama Rukio has beaten all odds; she currently chairs the relief committee in Saredho. Many of the members count on her for effective food distribution targeting the most vulnerable. In early times, it was not common to have women representation in such committees. Today, the situation is different, as in Saredho representation is at 60%.

When 13-year-old Margaret saw a local authority official walking towards her on the violent streets of Nairobi last year, she wearily prepared for the worst. She, together with others was confined at a social hall in a rehabilitation centre in the city. Her mother had died just months before; her father disappeared when she was barely 10.