Collateral Strategies for Poverty Reduction in Kenya: Prospects and Challenges

Abstract

In practice all over the world, development practitioners’ concern about poverty has been increasing because of their long history in working with the marginalized groups amidst inadequate resources and unfavourable scenarios that push them to poverty situations. At the micro level, development practitioners engage different strategies to deal with poverty, including poverty risk assessment, programme design, liaison with state agents and different resource providers to generate innovative ways to help individuals and communities to understand their wanting situation and improve their livelihoods for the better. This paper seeks to analyze the diverse collateral strategies engaged by different development practitioners in their efforts to eradicate poverty in Kenya. The role of the county and national governments, development agencies, civil society and international organizations and their collaboration with other actors such as the private sector, community based organizations, faith based organizations and self-help groups are analyzed in this paper. Special emphasis is placed on how such efforts can complement those of professional social workers for holistic and sustainable poverty reduction in Kenya.

Keywords: Development Practitioners, Poverty Reduction, Collateral Strategies, Self-help Groups