FOR RIOBA AND MASEKE

Note: This is not a factual story of a specific project, individual or family. The names Rioba and Maseke are from my community, the Kuria people of Kenya. Tunda County is a fictional location. It is an illustrative account based on patterns of harm experienced by communities affected by development-financed projects across Africa.

Rooms They Will Never Enter

Rioba tends his farm in Tunda County, where he grows maize and vegetables on land his family has worked for six generations. His wife Maseke farms alongside him, managing her own plots and contributing to household food security and income. They also keep a few goats and cows, and together their work sustains their livelihood, feeds their three children and pays school fees. Rioba and Maseke never had the opportunity to finish school themselves, but they are determined that their children will have what they did not.

They live quietly, focused on the daily work of farming and raising their family, and they don’t attend policy meetings or read Ministry announcements. They don’t know that at that exact moment, approximately 400 kilometers away in a boardroom in Nairobi, the Ministry of Water and the Tunda County Government are designing a large water project intended to alleviate water shortages.

What Rioba and Maseke begin to notice is the arrival of strangers in reflector jackets, men and women with cameras and surveying equipment who appear in their fields to mark boundaries and take measurements. When Rioba asks who they are and what they’re doing, the answer is vague: “Sisi ni Serikali” (We’re the government). There is no explanation of what the survey means, what it will lead to, or how it will affect his family.

Then there is a round of consultations held at the Chief’s office, the sub-county headquarters and county headquarters. But the people invited are mostly men, mostly those with connections to the local administration. Maseke is not invited. The women who farm the land, who manage water collection, who will bear the weight of relocation, are absent from the conversation. In the consultation, there is talk about the benefits of the project, but no conversation about compensation or timelines. There is no genuine dialogue about whether people want this project or what they need if it moves forward, and no space for them to share their fears, their aspirations, how they would prefer compensation or relocation, or suggestions on alternative routes that would reduce disruption on them and the other households that will be affected. The consultation is a box to check, not a conversation with Rioba and Maseke.

The voices of Rioba and Maseke are superseded by the majority who will benefit from the project, and their concerns are not noted in the consultation report.

The project proposal moves through institutional channels. In Nairobi, government officials present it at ministerial meetings, technical committees assess environmental and social impacts from 400 kilometers away, and recommendations are drafted and approvals sought.

Then the proposal travels further, reaching the World Bank headquarters in Washington DC, over 12,000 kilometers from Tunda County. There, in boardrooms where the air is controlled and the meetings are held in English, technical staff review the project, boards convene, committees assess it, and spreadsheets show that the project will benefit 45,000 people and affect 90 households. Rioba and Maseke are numbers in that calculation, discussed by people who have never set foot on their land and cannot imagine their lives. In the environmental and social impact assessment, they are not people with names, children, and histories on the land. They are a “vulnerable population” and a “mitigation issue.” The report says their concerns can be “adequately managed” through compensation and livelihood restoration support.

The World Bank approves a grant, and Rioba and Maseke know nothing of it.

At another meeting, it is confirmed that the project will start in a few months, beginning upstream, and that Rioba and Maseke will be contacted for the compensation and relocation process.

No one calls them. No one informs them of anything.

Then huge graders show up with even more men and women in reflector jackets. Construction begins.

Rioba and Maseke’s fields are demarcated for acquisition and their water source is disrupted. The family is told they will be relocated, but the timeline keeps shifting. Compensation figures arrive without any explanation of how they were calculated, and the amounts don’t match what they have actually lost. Their crops fail because they don’t know whether to plant, and Maseke spends hours walking to find water. Their income dries up while they wait for clarity that never comes.

Their oldest child, who was doing well in secondary school, becomes distracted by the chaos at home and begins skipping classes because his parents need help managing the transition. Their younger children ask why they have to move, and Rioba and Maseke struggle to explain something they themselves don’t fully understand. The stress in the household is visible, and the children feel it.

This is how development works in most cases.

Decisions made in rooms hundreds of kilometers away, then ratified in rooms thousands of kilometers away, in spaces Rioba and Maseke will never enter, fundamentally alter their lives and their children’s futures. They are not consulted as equals or centered in planning, and their livelihoods are treated as acceptable costs of progress. The benefits of the water project will flow to others. The costs fall on them.

Recourse Is an Ambulance

Now, Rioba and Maseke do have avenues to complain. The project has its own grievance mechanism, run by the agency implementing it, and Kenya has laws on public participation and land rights. The World Bank also has an Independent Accountability Mechanism, headquartered, again, thousands of kilometers away. In theory, they have recourse, but in most instances it works like an ambulance: it can treat the injury, but it arrives after the crash. 

For judicial processes, the costs, thresholds, and backlog of cases are a major barrier for communities. Non-judicial mechanisms can be approached before harm occurs, but complaints risk being found ineligible because it is difficult to establish causality at that stage. In some cases, communities are not aware that these mechanisms exist, and where they know about them, the processes can still be too technical. There is also a human reason. In most cases, communities turn first to the implementer and to local pathways, and it takes time before they decide to escalate.

By the time Rioba and Maseke file a complaint with the World Bank, the harm has already happened and their children have watched their parents’ livelihoods collapse. By the time a grievance is registered, the family’s stability is shattered. By the time an investigation concludes that procedures were not followed, years have passed, the harm cannot be undone, and the impact on the next generation is already underway.

What Should Happen Instead

Here is what could be different: Rioba and Maseke could feel heard in the process before decisions are made about their land and their lives.

Financiers could require genuine dialogue with affected communities before approval, not consultations where people are told what’s happening. The Ministry and County Government could design projects with communities, not for them. Compensation could be negotiated fairly before the project begins, with Rioba and Maseke understanding how it was calculated and having a genuine say. Maseke could be in the consultation, not absent from it, and women farmers’ voices could shape how projects are designed, because they know the land and livelihoods better than anyone.

None of this requires abandoning the water project. Tunda County does need water security, but Rioba and Maseke shouldn’t have to sacrifice their livelihoods invisibly so that others benefit. The project can succeed, and Rioba and Maseke can feel heard, respected, and fairly treated.

If you sit on a board or work at a development finance institution where you have the privilege of looking at a proposal or report that will change the lives of people like Rioba and Maseke, ask more questions. Be curious about their situation and aspirations. Visit them if you can, make them feel heard.

Development that harms Rioba and Maseke, that derails their children’s futures, that transfers the costs of progress onto the people with the least power to absorb them, is neither sustainable nor fair, and it should not be financed.

Rioba and Maseke deserve better. Their children deserve better. And development finance institutions have a responsibility to ensure it.