Shining Hope for Communities (SHOFCO) Founder and CEO Dr Kennedy Odede has called on funders and donors to invest in data collection to know what matters in the communities they support.
Dr Odede, who was the keynote speaker at Research Triangle Institute (RTI) forum on Locally-Led Development held on Tuesday, May 16, said local organisations must start leading the way on monitoring and evaluation.
“This is how we will demonstrate what works. This is how we will have a voice. And this is why SHOFCO is building a monitoring and evaluation system that can prove to the world what a Kenyan nonprofit can do,” he said.
The SHOFCO boss, who has been at the forefront in championing for localization of aid resources globally, stated that his experience in working with communities at the grassroots has proved that localization of aid is the answer.
“I am on a mission to shake up the way we do philanthropy and I’m ready to share with anyone how we can do this together.
“We are local. We are resilient. We are sustainable. We are SHOFCO. Together, we can give power to the people,” he opined.
Dr Odede, who was last year appointed to the Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid (ACVFA) of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), also spoke about how partnerships between the government and community-led organisations can help end poverty within Kenyan and African slums while achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
He has been urging the national and local governments, private sector, NGOs as well as global leaders to invest in community-led solutions if the world has to achieve substantial development.
His tenacity and persistence over the subject were vindicated in June 2022 when SHOFCO’s community-driven change became a model for global NGOs following a case study conducted by Bridgespan Group which had a close-up look at on-the-ground approaches that make the Kenyan organisation tick.
SHOFCO stood out among the other NGOs around the world with Bridgespan concluding that their model of community-driven change has achieved an impact that lasts because the community feels a sense of ownership.
“We need to bring more local leaders to the table. I want to see Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) being discussed in the slums.
That is why we launched the Global Alliance for Communities which brings together leaders across the globe who are working to better the lives of poor people, especially in slums.
“For us to have meaningful transformation in the communities, we need to involve local actors as partners. It is about dignity, we need to respect people who have lived the experience,” Dr Odede said at a past event.
Bridgespan Group is guiding the philanthropic choices of many leading donors, including MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation among others.
Dr Odede founded Shofco in 2004 in Kibera slums in Nairobi and it has now expanded to 31 counties across Kenya, serving over three million people directly.
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