Discussion Paper No. 002/2009 - Assessing 50 Years of Intervention in Kajiado District, Kenya 002-2009.

Abstract

AMREF has been implementing health interventions in Kajiado District, Kenya, since the early 1960s. At that time, the rationale was that the pastoral communities were marginalised and in dire need of health services. Over the years, AMREf"s interventions in the district have evolved and responded to specific and changing needs of the communities. This paper attempts to assess the impact of this long-term engagement and has employed a combination of different methodologies which included: a review of existing documentation within AMREF on programme/project design, reports and evaluations; a review and analysis of official secondary data; and collection and analysis of primary data from beneficiaries and key infonnants on their perceptions of project impact. A matrix was created to assist in collating and outlining all project information in a systematic and sequential manner ensuring that all projects covered within the period in question were examined. The findings indicated that while the intended intervention outputs had been achieved, the demographics of the district had substantially shifted thereby altering the characteristic of target population. It was also found that, to a large extent, the health status of the communities in Kajiado had improved as a result of the interventions. Further, the interventions had enhanced the capacity of the communities to partner in their own health and contributed to strengthen ing the health system. However, because of the inherent lack of consistent adequate documentation of critical information and the fact that there were many other organisations implementing simi ar projects, it is difficult to attribute all the achievements to AMREF alone.