Pillar 1

Governance and ​citizen engagement

Goal: To promote participatory governance, ​peace, gender equality, human rights and social ​justice.

Governance in Kenya has faced numerous challenges ​from time to time. These challenges range from lack of ​accountability, transparency and limited citizen ​participation in key decision making processes. ​Generally, people are unaware of their rights and ​responsibilities especially in airing their grievances. ​There is need to enhance gender equality and ​democratic values of inclusion, justice and reduce ​human rights abuses among the citizens.

Nguzo Africa facilitates citizens to undertake citizen Accountability Audits (CAA)s to ensure that ​public resources are used efficiently to achieve the set objectives. This reduces wastage of public ​resources for improved public service delivery.

Pillar 2

Agriculture and food ​security

Goal: To improve productivity among small ​holder farmers for nutrition, food security and ​incomes.

Studies have established that investment in ​agriculture is up to 11 times more effective in ​reducing extreme poverty than investment in any ​other sector. However, unattainable agriculture ​leads to cutting of forests to expand farmers.

Indeed, small holder farmers have recently been ​facing numerous challenges such as high cost of ​inputs, low provision of extension services, lack of ​capital, lack of markets and value additions to ​commercialise their activities. With the increasing ​population and high food prices, Kenyans are ​struggling to feed themselves.

In the Lake Basin for example, the region rely on ​agriculture and livestock imports from neighbouring ​counties of Uganda, Tanzania and DRC. The region is ​among the top importers of eggs, maize, fruits and ​vegetable from Uganda. The Lake Basin’s livestock ​and crops production systems are in limbo.

Nguzo Africa supports smallholder farmers both crop and livestock producers to increase their ​productivity and boost their household incomes. The foundation promotes and supports ​aggregation, value addition of various products in the dairy, coffee, poultry, beef and bee keeping ​sectors. Nguzo Africa links farmers to markets, credit facilities and offering extension support ​services.

Pillar 3

Environmental ​conservation and ​climate change

Goal: To tackle climate change crisis, conserve ​and protect the environment for sustainable ​development in ASALs and Lake Basin Regions ​of Kenya.

Kenya is now experiencing the heaviest impact of ​climate change. The UN intergovernmental panel on ​climate change predicts that floods, heat and ​drought will increase in Africa. In ASALs and the Lake ​Region the annual rituals of drought and floods is a ​common occurrence, directly affecting agriculture ​and livestock production, wildlife and plants.

This comes in form of serious droughts, strong winds ​and destructive flooding leading to death of animals ​and people due to hunger, malnutrition. This climatic ​change threatens livelihoods low economic ​opportunities of residents in these regions. Nguzo ​Africa will develop initiatives that address climate ​change, mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, ​adaptation to climate change, conserving natural ​carbon sinks / REDD+ and the conservation of ​biodiversity. We will enhance citizen involvement ​and application community-led approaches to ​address threats caused by climate change and ​biodiversity loss.

Nguzo Africa works with environmental champions in ​schools to adopt trees and create "school mini forests" ​for improved learning environment and education ​performance. By 2024, Nguzo Africa had grown more ​that 100,000 trees in schools, public spaces and farms. ​These actions will be accelerated in he next 3 years to ​achieve our target of growing 1 million trees. By 2050, ​we target to have grown 1 billion trees in Africa, restored ​degraded landscapes, improved biodiversity and ​ecosystem health, created jobs and incomes for farms ​engaged in commercial tree growing an agroforestry.

We shall continue championing for climate crisis justice ​particularly in Africa where there is rampart logging of ​hardwoods from fragile and valuable ecosystems like the ​Congo Basin, and Kenya's Mau ecosystem.

Pillar 4

Organisation Excellence

Goal: To position Nguzo Africa as a vibrant, ​innovative and model organisation for effective ​service delivery.

To effectively deliver value to communities and other ​stakeholders, Nguzo Africa puts in place effective ​structures and ensure adequate resources for ​delivery of our mandate. Nguzo Africa undertakes an ​annual capacity assessment that has helped in ​supporting institutional strengthening. However, ​there is need to review the human resource, finance ​and operations manuals with the change in ​organizational status. The foundation will recruit and ​train more staff, interns and volunteers to deliver ​effectively and responsibly. The review will focus on ​ensuring that the foundation is well anchored on a ​strong foundation to delivery. This will ultimately lead ​to enhance corporation, development of robust ​systems, enhanced service delivery and retained ​qualified talent to deliver mission impact.

Pillar 5

Building resilience

Goal: To build resilience of Nguzo Africa ​through community philanthropy and ​#ShiftThePower, social enterprises ​development, innovations and catalytic ​investments.

Building resilience is a process by which people ​utilize flexibility to reframe thought patterns and ​learn to tap into a strengths-based approach to ​working through obstacles.

Local development organisations such as Nguzo ​Africa often face sustainability challenges. This is ​often attributed to reduced donor funding, ​competing donor demands and lack of sustainability ​strategies. The focus for Nguzo Africa is enhancing ​community giving, social enterprises and ​endowment building for sustainability.

Strengthening demand-side #ShitThePower aspirations in Kenya. Through this advocacy ​the voices of county and community level CSOs is being felt. There is a sense of urgency to ​fund and recognise community based organisations since they offer last mile delivery of ​humanitarian aid and development.