An island of success in a sea of failure? The MDGs and Sauri Millennium Village in Kenya

Abstract

For a number of decades, foreign aid-supported poverty reduction and development concepts, and This research examined the case of Sauri using ethnographic mixed methods involving qualitative semi-structured interviews with residents and key informants to explore the impact of the MVP.The specific focus was on the processes employed in implementing the MVP approach, and its effects and outcomes, having regard for the MDGs paradigm's truth claims about poverty and poverty reduction in Sauri, the voices of the villagers, and an understanding of the experiences of those engaged in, or affected by, the MVP.The major findings indicated that the MVP to some extent had empowered Sauri villagers in agricultural and non-agriculture, education and health programmes with significant foreign aid funding. At the same time some challenges emerged, due in the main to a lack of understanding of ii the complexity of poverty, and the traditional structures at village levels where new MVP power structures were introduced. Further, the absence of a clear exit strategy in Sauri put the sustainability of the MVP in question, as well as the veracity of implementation of MDGs in other villages in Kenya, as stipulated in the Kenya Vision 2030. Such reservations made other future development programmes, potentially problematic.As the current MDGs expire in 2015, this study contributes towards a richer understanding of the dimensions of poverty, sustainability and foreign aid from the villagers' perspectives, valuing their knowledge, priorities, and the outcomes of implementation of the SMV project. The thesis main contribution stems from presenting an account of how the villagers themselves assess and experience the interventions, and this constitutes a valuable addition to development debates.Similarly, the study adds valuable insight that the SMVP has replaced existing power structures and that it is thus -despite all its self-proclaimed descriptions as grassroots and bottom-up -another topdown development intervention. In addition, the study provides valuable lessons about the implications of time-bound short-term MVP development approaches with a strong focus on the end goal, recognising that insufficient attention has been paid to two main aspects of sustainabilitynamely, post-implementation administration and operational sustainability. The study adds value by including the voices of the villagers in the MVP agenda for poverty reduction, and in the end contributing to the MVP's re-evaluation and improvement, suitability and sustainability, at national levels and in the global debate regarding the shaping of the Sustainable Development Goals.iii Declaration by authorThis thesis is composed of my original work, and contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference has been made in the text. I have clearly stated the contribution by others to jointly authored works that I have included in my thesis.