“Do-nou” technology changes rural people’s life: – Experience through rural road maintenance in larger Uasin Gish

更新日:2011/06/30

Speaker: Yuki HONJO (University of Nairobi)

Date:     16th JUNE 2011

Venue: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Nairobi Research Station

Researched by: Honjo, Y., Fukubayashi, Y., and Kimura, M.

Rural roads are crucial for rural people’s transport from place to place. They access to markets, hospitals, and schools, etc. Rural roads play a fundamental part of rural people’s life, and well maintained rural roads provide a better life for them.

Impassable rural roads are serious problems during the rainy season in Kenya. This presentation clarifies the changes in terms of awareness and, agricultural and social benefits through rural road maintenance activities using “do-nou” technology in Western Kenya based on a research project. “Do-nou” is a Japanese word which means gunny bags containing soil, and “do-nou” technology is a kind of geo-textile method that enable roads stable with unskilled collective labour force and locally available materials.

Data was collected under the project in East and North Uasin Gishu and Wareng Districts, Kenya. Four groups were participating in the road maintenance project. 153 of group members were sampled and interviewed using an interview schedule which was both open- and close ended.

We found that a variety of awareness had arisen through “do-nou” technology, and that awareness was linked to satisfaction and success. Consequently “do-nou” activities created a web of awareness that will closely link motivation to activate group members’ capacity development.

Agricultural and social benefits were brought to group members. They realised that after the maintenance of roads, transport to markets became easier and they had more opportunity to earn their incomes. They also experienced easy access to hospitals and schools as social facilities. Those benefits improved their lives.

However, several challenges remained for sustainable rural road maintenance by the group members’ initiative. The most critical challenges were to mobilise materials and their transport cost. We continue to trace the on-going development process on how to overcome those challenges for further studies.

In this research, rural road maintenance using “do-nou” technology activated group members’ potential. “Do-nou” activities became a trigger to challenge further problems that group members faced and an option to create better life for the rural people.

Last but not least, this research project was implemented by Community Road Empowerment (CORE) which is an international NGO in Kenya; we wish to acknowledge with thanks to Mr. Kita, Ms. Matsumoto, Mr. Njuguna, and Mr. Biwotto, and to TOYOTA foundation for project funding. We also acknowledge with special thanks to University of Nairobi, Professor Chitere who partly supervised the research work that gave some ideas to this presentation.