BY CAROLINE KATANA
Kenya Community Development Foundation (KCDF), Program Coordinator Helen Kuria has urged Community of Practice network members to adopt innovative and sustainable strategies to ensure organizational longevity.
She said a time has come for COP members to come up with amicable strategies for sustaining their organizations rather than depending on international donors for funding.
“Every organization can come up with unique ways of mobilizing resources at the local level for sustainability,” said Ms. Kuria.
She spoke during the National Learning Forum, held at Convent International Hotel in Nairobi and funded by the Kenya Community Development Foundation (KCDF).
Project Coordinator Community Voice and Philanthropy KCDF Helen Kuria
The event served as a pivotal platform for addressing challenges faced by the Community of Practice (CoP) network.
The initiative engaged 72 organizations across six counties: Busia, Kisumu, Kakamega, Nairobi, Makueni, and Kwale, fostering collaboration, peer-to-peer learning, and knowledge exchange.
Kuria emphasized the critical need to harness local strengths and resources within communities as a foundation for driving impactful and sustainable change.
The program coordinator highlighted the importance of fostering collaboration and networking among the Community of Practice (CoP) members to address the persistent challenges faced by many organizations.
“This approach reflects the network’s commitment to creating a supportive environment for CSOs, catalyzing impactful social accountability initiatives, and inspiring community-driven solutions,” she said.
 Kwale county community of practice
Muslim Women Advancement Rights and Protection MWARP coordinator and Kwale County Community of Practice member Mwalimu Ali said Kwale county community of practice is well known for policy advocacy, it adopts non-violent participatory approaches to influence decision makers and bring about impactful policy transformations.
“One of the Kwale county community of practice focus areas has been promoting inclusive education to ensure equitable learning opportunities for all, particularly marginalized groups (PWDs), Kwale CoP has various thematic, climate, peace and security, education among others, “Said Mr. Ali
Mwarp Coordinator and Kwale Cop representative Mwalimu Ali
Ali applauded KCDF for organizing the National Learning forum that gave him the opportunity to learn new working techniques and exchange of knowledge with like –minded Cop members from different regions.
“Local funds mobilization, engagement of government and private sectors and increasing membership are some of the key strategies of sustainability of an organization,” he said.
Busia CoP Members
Sara Martha, representing the Community of Practice (CoP) Busia Chapter, highlighted the organization’s progress after one year of operation, during which they successfully united 69 members to advocate for policy reforms and foster meaningful social transformation in the region.
“CoP Busia focuses on various thematic areas, including education, business, agriculture, health, gender empowerment, and budget advocacy, among others,” said Martha.
She emphasized the chapter’s collaborative efforts with the government to ensure that citizens of Busia access their constitutional rights.
Martha also committed to leveraging knowledge gained from the National Learning Forum to empower grassroots organizations. She aims to help these groups better understand and adapt to the evolving civil society landscape.
“As civil organizations we understand that things are changing very fast especially on matters of resources, it’s time to embrace social enterprise, women’s funds and asset development so as to ensure we don’t lack funds to drive our good projects that we are implementing to our communities,” she said.
Martha also called upon KCDF and other donors supporting grassroots organizations to come out and continue giving support not only on funding but capacity building of members for strengthening sustainability.
Busia CoP Member Sara Martha
“Community based organizations can collaborate and work closely with the national and county governments without pointing fingers for the sustainability of the organization and effective service delivery to the community “
Kisumu county Community of practice chair Cliff Ochieng said Cop Kisumu being two years old, it is known for its strong push on improving service delivery by holding duty bearers accountable in the county.
He affirmed the national learning forum to have been very critical for the Kisumu Cop members after learning new techniques of sustaining their network from other Cops.
“We have learnt a lot from our peers, issues about capacity building, resource mobilization, partnership with the private sectors, state and non-state actors, “Said Mr. Ochieng
Mr. ochieng said cop Kisumu future plans is to recruit more grassroots organizations to join community of practice come 2025, building capacity of the existing members of Kisumu cop to meet CBO requirements so as to be stronger on local resource mobilization, support mobilization for various advocacy challenges faced in counties.
 Kisumu CoP Chair Cliff Ochieng
“The structured way of recruiting members, use of media and additionally we have learnt and experience from other Cops there is a collective joint effort in bringing on board more CSOs at the grassroots level and inclusion of people living with disability “
Convener of Makueni Community of practice Mue Ndeto said Makueni CoP is well known for decentralizing its structures /operations to sub ward level.
He noted that Makueni Cop is supporting an enabling policy and legal environment to secure more equitable access to services for the poor and other excluded groups.
Makueni CoP Convener Mue Ndeto
“Makueni CoP can specialize on a few themes or sectors to ensure focused service delivery,” she said.
Youth Agenda Chief Executive Officer and also anchor of Community of practice Nairobi chapter Victor Nyongesa said Nairobi Cop has been in existence since 2022 and has over 23 grassroots organizations working on different thematic areas.
The CEO said Nairobi Cop has been active in promoting good governance, inclusive health care, inclusive climate action and also promoting youth employment in Nairobi County.
“We don’t limit ourselves on working in Nairobi County alone, there is work that we have done at national level focusing on things that we feel have an implication in the oppression of the county and also in the lives of people in the said CEO Nyongesa
The CEO applauded KCDF for convening the national learning forum bringing Cops from the six regions to learn from each other’s best practices working in each county.
Youth Agenda CEO and Nairobi CoP Chair Victor Nyongesa
“One key takeaway for me is how other Communities of Practice (CoPs) have developed innovative ways to raise resources to support their initiatives. They’ve also devised creative strategies to engage with county leadership, which is something we, as the Nairobi Cop, are eager to implement next year,” he said.
Additionally, Nyongesa said they are exploring the possibility of expanding their membership to include representatives from the private sector and firmly believing in the power of collaboration and partnership to achieve their goals.
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