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Background

  

Interview with Mr Manases Owade, Suba Green Forest Investment, Kenya

Manases Owade (centre)

'You cannot delink knowledge from aid. We need both.'

‘When you want to accomplish change, you need an entrepreneurial incentive’, according to Manases Owade. ‘I don’t believe in charity, but in economic development with social return.’

Manases Owade is manager at the Suba Green Forest Social Investment Initiative, a social initiative with a business aspect. The organisation has two pillars: a trust (Green Forest Social Investment Trust), and a company (Green Forest Social Investment Ltd.). Together with its implementing partner OSIENALA and its facilitating partner International Child Support, the trust and the company introduce tree farming and beekeeping for income.

Eroded hills due to tree logging

Tree logging

The Suba area is a mountainous remote area in Nyanza Province, Kenya. Access roads sometimes become impassable due to splash rains. ‘Electricity is an issue as well’, says Owade. Over the last thirty years, the climate has been changing due to the removal of trees for survival. There are serious negative effects of tree logging, according to Owade.

‘The environment in this area was massively destroyed. We want to conserve those hills by using them in a more constructive way. Together with local communities.’

Fish is currently the major economy in Suba district. ‘But to make a living out of it is almost impossible. They fish in a traditional way and that’s not substantial’, says Owade who was born in Nyanza province, nearby the Suba district.

Jatropha plant

The company and the Trust

The company, the Green Forest Social Investment Ltd., has several activities. They focus on producing and planting trees for commercial use on the Community Trust lands in partnership with the local county council, but they also produce bio-diesel and honey, for instance. ‘There’s a big market for our tree products and our bio-diesel. We don’t want to create food insecurity, so we plant jatropha on the hills as well.’

The trust, which Owade works for, focuses on the social aspects for the local communities. ‘They benefit from the Green Forest Social Initiative through engagement in social tree farming and beekeeping for income, raising trees through nurseries which they sell directly to the limited company and informal employment in infrastructural works (construction) undertaken by the Trust and the company. And we teach the local carpenters how to build a beehive for instance.’

Tree nursery

The Dutch foundation Stichting Het Groene Woudt cooperates with the Green Forest Social Investment Holding. This foundation’s mission is to ensure economic development in specifically identified areas of the world, through the establishment of companies and processing facilities and cooperating with civil society.

The Suba Green Forest Social Initiative is planning an Action Learning Case Study in cooperation with Context. This could help making the company and the trust more effective, according to mister Owade. And to get the community more involved as well.

Money doesn't bring about long term change

Manases: ‘We now organize a forum four times a year with the local communities, to communicate with them. Those processes are most interesting. For me, change is a process wherein all parties have the same goal.’

‘Civic Driven Change with economic touch is the best way to improve livelihoods. In order to accomplish change, you need knowledge. You have to educate the local communities. This process cannot be delinked from aid. We need both aid and knowledge. Still, aid starts with money, because without the money you cannot start anything. But only money doesn’t bring about long term change. You have to work in the local context to establish structural and sustainable changes.’