Sport for Development

Policies, Perils and Partnerships

Bob Munro
Chairman, Board of Trustees
Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA)
Box 63786, 00619 Nairobi, Kenya
Mobile: +254-722-878787
munro@xxcelafrica.com
www.mysakenya.org

This report has three distinct parts. The first part on “Lessons Learned During the
Lean Years” highlights some of the basic principles and approaches on sport for de-
velopment pioneered by the Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA) over the last
two decades. At the request of the conference organizers, the second part on “The
Perils of Poverty Reduction” focuses on some of the often unreported threats and
risks faced by those working on the frontlines in community-based sport for devel-
opment organizations. The third and concluding part on “Development Partners vs
Aid Donors” highlights different examples of mutually beneficial partnerships and
the crucial importance of creating new heroes, role models and leaders to help
accelerate the future development of their communities and countries.

Part I: Sport for Development

Lessons Learned During the Lean Years
1. When MYSA started in 1987, no UN or bilateral aid agencies or national governments gave any
priority to sport as a serious development activity. At that time, I worked as a senior policy adviser on
environment and sustainable development for many of those agencies and repeatedly tried to do
some insider trading on behalf of the Mathare youth. But when I tried to persuade them to take sport
for development seriously, the response I usually got was a polite smile followed by a quick shift to a
more serious subject. So I stopped trying and, with the talented and determined youth in the Mathare
slums, we re-focused instead on showing them how sport can contribute to sustainable development.

2. In retrospect, their refusal to acknowledge sport as a legitimate development activity was a bless-
ing as MYSA was left alone to evolve solely in response to the needs of its members and the com-
munity. During its first decade no one ever tried to seduce MYSA with funds to take on projects reflect-
ing donor-driven priorities. Instead, MYSA remained focused only on the priorities of its own members.
MYSA also escaped the need to write long reports to anyone else to justify what it was doing and why
it was doing it and with what “cost-effective” results. In fact, during its first decade MYSA had so little
money that everything MYSA did was always cost-effective.
Commonwealth Conference 2 Glasgow, June 3-4, 2010

Drilling holes in goalpost

3. With no significant donor funding during its first decade, MYSA also escaped the inevitable pro-
ject review missions by external experts whose credibility too often depends on finding faults to report
to their donor clients. That temptation for outside consultants to focus more on fault-finding than on
fact-finding undermined and sometimes killed some potentially good community-based initiatives. That
raises an interesting challenge for the external fault-finding experts: In an organization like MYSA
which is owned and run by the youth themselves, inexperienced young leaders may not always make
the best decisions but, unlike those from outside their community, can they ever make any seriously
wrong decisions?

4. For example, as a MYSA adviser and chairman of the Friends of MYSA Group, during MYSA’s
first decade I always attended the weekly meetings of the overall MYSA Executive Council as an ex
officio non-voting member. Most of the elected MYSA leaders were still students so the meetings were
held after school every Wednesday and started precisely at 4:59 p.m. (that exact time always ap-
peared on the agenda to remind the members to be punctual).

5. At a meeting in January 1988, the MYSA Executive Council decided to start leagues for under-12
year old boys on smaller fields with smaller teams (e.g. 7-a-side), smaller balls and smaller goalposts.
As MYSA always tried to spend its few funds by supporting small businesses in the slums, the Council
decided the new goalposts would be made with 3-inch diameter pipes by a local metal-working shop.
Having agreed on the size of the new goals, the meeting was about to move to the next agenda item
when one young member interjected that “we must make sure holes are drilled every 2-feet through
the pipes for the new goalposts”. Stunned by such a strange proposal, I asked why he wanted to
weaken the goalposts by drilling holes through them. “If we don’t put holes in them” the youth politely
replied, “then some people will steal our goalposts to use as water pipes”.

Delivering development by the community

6. Those goalposts, with the holes drilled through them, were never stolen and lasted for many
years. Every time I saw those goalposts it reminded me of the crucial difference between development
projects being implemented with and by the community rather than for the community. Then and still
today, development aid agencies too often undertake projects for the community like, in this case, a
new football field with goalposts. When those goalposts later disappear, who will be blamed by the in-
evitable fault-finding mission? Their predictable conclusion will be that “you can’t trust the poor”. But
that is unfair and wrong. Despite the rhetoric about “participatory approaches” and “stakeholder in-
volvement”, those goalposts will disappear because the donor did not trust the poor from the outset
and instead made their decisions for rather than with the community.

7. Without significant donor funds during its first decade, everything MYSA did had to be done by
and with the community. To avoid any misunderstanding, I am not advocating that NGOs avoid donor
funding or that donors refrain from funding NGOs during their first decade. Without donor funding,
MYSA’s first decade was a constant struggle for survival, especially as MYSA never said “No” when a
dozen barefoot kids in torn T-shirts and shorts showed up and said they were a football team who
wanted to join MYSA. While MYSA’s budget limped along with only small increases each year, in 1988
1
MYSA’s membership suddenly increased 6-fold and then doubled again over the next few years.

8. During MYSA’s first decade the lack of funds combined with a fast growing membership had
some distinct advantages. The pragmatic methods and economical habits which MYSA was forced to
adopt during those lean years then served MYSA well in its second decade when, persuaded by the
unexpected success of MYSA’s self-help youth sports, environmental cleanups and AIDS prevention
projects, some UN and other international and bilateral aid agencies started including sport for devel-
opment programmes in their budgets.

1
See, for example, "Football sets development rolling in slums" by Horace Awori, Inter-Press Service (IPS)
feature, November 29, 1989; Perlez, "In Nairobi slums, soccer gives poor youths hope" by Jane Perlez, New York
Times, October 14, 1991; "Children and the environment: A new approach to youth activities and environmental
cleanup by the Mathare Youth Sports Association in Kenya", Journal of Environment and Urbanization, October
1992, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 207-209; "Development by Youth" in Kenya’s 7th National Development Plan for 1994-96
on "Mobilizing Resources for Sustainable Development", Government of Kenya, Nairobi, 1994; and "The Social
Benefits of Football", UEFA Bulletin Officiel, Union des Associations Europeennes de Football (UEFA), No. 157,
December 1996, pp. 20-21.
Commonwealth Conference 3 Glasgow, June 3-4, 2010

9. Some of the lessons learned and practical benefits from MYSA’s early and lean years included:

(a) MYSA had to be organized by young volunteers

10. In the Mathare slums there were few fathers with the time or inclination to organize sports
leagues for the youth. The mothers, often single mothers abandoned by one or a series of husbands,
were already overworked and overburdened by trying to earn enough money for their families to sur-
vive. So there was no other option: MYSA would only survive if organized by the youth themselves.

11. Moreover, with no funds to hire any staff except a part-time coordinator, the young MYSA leaders
and organizers had to act on an entirely voluntary basis. That is why MYSA became and remains a
truly self-help and learning-by-doing organization. Today, MYSA has over 60 full-time staff members.
But that voluntarism remains a core value and strength of the organization and is still a dominant fea-
ture of MYSA’s many different sports and community service activities.

(b) MYSA had to have a simple and democratic structure

12. From the outset, the MYSA youth who voluntarily did the work in the field also made the policy
and other decisions which guided their own work. The governance and decision-making in MYSA has
always been from the bottom upwards. At the start of every year, the members in each zone elect their
own zonal Executive Committees. Each of the zonal chairmen then automatically becomes a member
of the overall MYSA Sports Council. Each zonal committee also appoints two members to the overall
MYSA Community Service Council. Both the Sports and the Community Service Councils then elect
four and five members respectively to the top policy making body, the MYSA Executive Council.

13. So a youth cannot become a top leader and decision-maker in MYSA without first being active,
respected and elected at the zonal level. Today that democratic, bottom up and largely flat governance
structure still serves MYSA well (see chart). The elected MYSA leaders and hundreds of volunteer or-
ganizers, coaches and referees are still on average only 15-16 years old. The elected head of Kayole
Zone, the largest of the 16 MYSA zones with over 2,100 members on 146 teams, is 12-year old
2
Charity Muthoni who FIFA acknowledges as likely the youngest elected football official in the world.

2
“Charity elected as youngest MYSA chairman”, www.fifa.com, November 4, 2009.
Commonwealth Conference 4 Glasgow, June 3-4, 2010

(c) MYSA teams had to be coached and refereed by the youth themselves

14. In the Mathare slums there were few coaches and referees so MYSA had to build its own new
capacity. In keeping with the basic MYSA principle that if you get something from MYSA then you
should put something back into MYSA, the players in the U18 leagues coached and refereed in the
U16 leagues where the players also coached and refereed in the U14 leagues who in turn … etc. Also,
adopting the “turning poachers into gamekeepers” approach, players who abused or assaulted refer-
ees were suspended until they refereed ten matches in a younger MYSA league.

15. MYSA initially organized basic coach and referee training clinics. However, in the late 1990s
MYSA partnered with the Royal Netherlands Football Association (KNVB) Academy to conduct more
advanced certificate courses. Five MYSA coaches have already earned UEFA B Coaching Licenses.
Today, KNVB/MYSA trained coaches and referees feature prominently in the Kenyan Premier and
Nationwide Leagues. One of them, Maqulate Atieno, was even recently appointed an international
Match Commissioner by the Confederation of African Football (CAF). Over the last few years,
KNVB/MYSA trained instructors have assisted or led coaching, refereeing and sport for development
training courses in Botswana, Cape Verde, India, Kenya, Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa, south-
ern Sudan, Viet Nam and Zambia.

(d) MYSA was forced to stretch and check every shilling

16. The first agenda items for the weekly MYSA Executive Council meetings were always “Expendi-
ture since the last meeting” and “Expenditure for next week”. The only MYSA staff member was a part-
time coordinator who, with the youth appointed as the MYSA Treasurer, presented and defended
those expenditure reports. A simple rule dominated the discussions: no receipt or invoice = no ex-
penditure. The members elected by each MYSA zone carefully scrutinized together every receipt and
every proposed expenditure and then tried to stretch every shilling in the budget. The MYSA coordina-
tor also had to show his accounts to any MYSA youth who came to the office and asked to see them.

17. Although MYSA’s expenditure was miniscule compared to their other clients, a top international
audit company, Coopers & Lybrand, kindly carried out at concessional rates an independent audit of
3
the MYSA accounts every year. Those early habits of stretching and checking ever shilling continued
and served MYSA well during its second decade. Today, MYSA is still one of the few sports organiza-
4
tions in Kenya to publish audited accounts every year.

(e) MYSA learned that clearing garbage attracted support for playing football

18. MYSA’s founding and still dominant principle is “if you get something from the community, then
you should put something back”. In 1988 MYSA integrated its football leagues with slum garbage and
environmental cleanups. On the weekends, teams which win their matches get three points while
those teams which complete their garbage cleanup projects get six points. As that was the same as
winning two matches, the captains ensured their players turned up for their team cleanup projects.

19. Then and still today, MYSA likely has the only leagues in the world where the league standings
include columns for matches won, tied and lost plus garbage cleanup points. Later, that linking of sport
with community service had practical benefits for MYSA. In its financially lean decade, MYSA attracted
more support and money for garbage cleanups than for football. For example, the Norwegian Ministry
of the Environment donated several hundred rakes, shovels and wheelbarrows. In addition, as a re-
ward for its unique slum garbage and environmental cleanups, the Ministry also paid the airfares for
the first MYSA teams which participated in the Norway Cups in 1990 and 1992.

20. That also led to international recognition of MYSA’s pioneering combination of self-help youth
sports and community service. At the 1992 UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, a MYSA representa-
5
tive was presented with the UNEP Global 500 Award for environmental innovation and achievement.
Not coincidentally, in parallel with that conference a MYSA U16 boys team invited and hosted by Pelé

3
"MYSA set pace in keeping accounts", Daily Nation, April 10, 1990, page 27; “Mathare youth account for cash"
by Omulo Okoth, Standard, February 21, 1991.
4
"Mathare youth score another first: audited accounts" by Omulo Okoth, Standard, December 11, 1993, page 30;
“Audited accounts a must for sports bodies", Standard Editorial, December 11, 1993, page 8.
5
"Ex-parking boy to attend Earth Summit in Rio" by Peter Njenga, Daily Nation, May 27, 1992; "UNEP honours
green heroes of Nairobi slums", Africa News 1992/2, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Nairobi,
Kenya, June 1992.
Commonwealth Conference 5 Glasgow, June 3-4, 2010

also competed against five Brazilian youth teams and, to the surprise and dismay of their hosts, won
6
the Eco-92 Youth Football Tournament.

(f) MYSA leaders had to be accountable … but only to their own members

21. MYSA’s democratic electoral process and governance structure largely ensured that only the best
and most respected young leaders rose through the ranks to the top. But they could not rest on their
laurels. Instead, they had to remain active in their local zones as well as in the top MYSA decision-
making bodies in order to get elected again the next year.

22. Without significant donor funding and associated performance reports during the first decade, the
young MYSA leaders were still held accountable but only by and to their own members. Today,
MYSA’s young leaders and staff are now accountable to a wide-range of partners and donors but their
primary accountability to their own members is still a key feature and major strength of MYSA.

Focusing on practical policies and methods

23. When reviewing their options and making decisions during MYSA’s first decade, the young MYSA
leaders had no knowledge of the prevailing and often conflicting development theories, models and
policies. But, despite their youth, what they did know is that the existing development policies and pro-
grammes did not work and never benefited or even reached them in the Mathare slums.

24. Having grown up in desperately poor families who can never afford to be wasteful or impractical,
the MYSA leaders created their own new development path through their always practical and often
innovative responses to the many problems they faced in their community and MYSA. To survive
physically and psychologically in the tough conditions in the Mathare slums, the youth even had their
own pragmatic approach and philosophy which had different variations but is best summed by “there
are no problems, only challenges”.

25. By the mid-1990s the MYSA youth leaders had pioneered and proved to sceptics in the UN and
other donor agencies that sport, especially when combined with community service, did provide a new,
practical and powerful starting point for involving youth directly in improving their own lives and com-
munities. For example, during the British House of Lords debate on international development policy in
early November 1997, Lord Newby made a strong statement which included the following:

“Those who attended the CHOGM Sports Conference a few weeks ago were privileged to hear
about the Mathare Youth Sports Association which is based in a huge poverty-stricken shanty
town on the outskirts of Nairobi. That association not only runs footballing activities but also con-
tributes to every aspect of the development process …. The association runs itself, encouraging
the concepts of good governance and accountability among its largely teenage members. They
are also extremely – and worryingly – good footballers.

The imagination, maturity and success of those who run the Mathare project challenge the per-
ception of many people about the ability of the poor and young in the most unpromising circum-
stances to help themselves. It also demonstrates that sport is not simply a frivolous adjunct to
real life but can be a very powerful force for personal and community development.

The White Paper [on International Development Policy] should make it easier for the Government
to support the type of project that I have described this afternoon. In doing so it offers the
prospect of empowering some of the world’s poorest individuals and communities to haul them-
7
selves out of poverty on a sustainable basis. Therefore, it deserves our strong support.”

26. As a consequence, sport for development activities were finally added to the development ag-
enda and budgets of some international agencies. Another happy consequence was that MYSA
started its second decade with significant donor funding for rapidly expanding the scale and scope of
its self-help youth sports and community service programmes, especially from NORAD through
MYSA’s new Norwegian NGO partner, the Stromme Foundation.

6
"Mathare youth impress Brazilians", Standard, June 10, 1992; "Soccer team cleans up foes and towns" by Anne
McIlroy, Calgary Herald, Canada, June 10, 1992; "Pele honours Mathare youth team", Standard, June 17, 1992.
7
Statement by Lord Newby on November 10, 1997 during the debate on international development policy in the
British House of Lords
Commonwealth Conference 6 Glasgow, June 3-4, 2010

27. This year MYSA celebrates its 24th anniversary. Today, nearly 25,000 boys and girls on 1,750
teams in over 120 leagues in 16 zones participate in the MYSA self-help sports, slum garbage and en-
vironmental cleanups, AIDS prevention, leadership training, feeding and freeing jailed kids, photogra-
phy, drama, dance, gymnastics, anti-child labour, disabled kids, slum libraries and other community
service and development projects.

28. MYSA is also advising and assisting similar self-help youth sport for development projects in Bot-
swana, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and southern Sudan. On the field, MYSA consistently wins gold
medals at the annual East Africa Youth Cup, is ranked second worldwide in gold medals won at the
world’s oldest and largest international youth tournament, the Norway Cup, and later this month will
defend its global FIFA Football for Hope championship title during the FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

29. Looking back over the last two decades, there are a wide-range of important principles, policies
and practices which really helped MYSA survive and succeed. Some specific examples are high-
lighted and briefly described below.

(a) Give youth a sporting chance on and off the field

30. The greatest challenge in Kenya and many other African countries is to secure social justice for
the poor majority of people. In 1971 in John Rawls’ pioneering “A Theory of Justice”, the first principle
of justice "requires equality in the assignment of basic rights and duties". But the second principle is
that "social and economic inequalities (e.g. of wealth or authority) are only just if they result in com-
8
pensating benefits for everyone and in particular for the least advantaged members of society".

31. Fifteen year later, Rawls’ second principle of justice was wonderfully re-stated by another Ameri-
9
can philosopher, young Calvin in the globally syndicated Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strip.

32. That is why MYSA started and is still needed: because the world is unfair but still and sadly isn’t
unfair in favour of the poor families and youth in the Mathare slums and many other poor urban and
rural communities in Africa. That is also why MYSA's main mission and motto is to "give youth a sport-
ing chance on and off the field".

(b) Give girls a sporting chance on and off the field

33. MYSA first attempted to form girls football leagues in the early 1990s. But that effort initially failed
as the girls were needed at home to look after their younger brothers and sisters while their mother
worked. So MYSA bought some tents, put them up beside the playing fields and ran temporary day-
care centres where the girls could safely park their younger brothers and sisters during matches.

34. Their pride and self-esteem rose dramatically when MYSA girls teams later started winning med-
als at the Norway Cup. The girls football project became MYSA's most effective AIDS prevention initia-
tive as the girls gradually acquired the self-confidence to say “No”. The girls also became equal part-
10
ners and transformed MYSA’s previously male dominated culture and attitudes. Today, 49.3% of all
elected MYSA leaders are female, including the new chair of the overall MYSA Executive Council.

8
John Rawls, 1971, “A Theory of Justice”, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pages 14-15.
9
Watterson, Bill, 1996, Calvin and Hobbes, International Herald Tribune, May 6, 1996.
10
Brady, Martha and Khan, Arjmand, 2002, “Letting Girls Play: The Mathare Youth Sports Association Program for
Girls”, The Population Council, New York, USA.
Commonwealth Conference 7 Glasgow, June 3-4, 2010

(c) Link sports with community service

35. The founding principle of MYSA is "if you get do something from the community, you should put
something back into the community". As the accumulated garbage and blocked drainage ditches were
a major cause of diseases which killed many kids in the slums, in 1988 MYSA started to link its football
leagues with garbage and environmental cleanup projects. That founding principle and link between
sport and community service later helped attract the interest and support of UN and other develop-
ment aid agencies.

(d) Make youth the owners and decision-makers

36. From the start in 1987, MYSA has always been owned and run by the youth themselves. Al-
though the youth may not always make the best decisions, at least they don’t make any seriously mis-
guided or wrong decisions. Also, the youth are more determined and committed because they are im-
plementing their own decisions rather than decisions made by others.

(e) Let the best leaders earn their way to the top

37. The MYSA leaders are elected from the bottom up, from the zonal Executive Committees to the
Sports and Community Service Councils and then to the overall Executive Council. The leaders are
elected by their peers on the basis of merit and performance. Campaigning for elective posts is ac-
tively discouraged. MYSA’s democratic electoral process and governance structure ensures that
MYSA’s leaders remain constantly in contact with and accountable to their members.

(f) Give youth a chance to learn-by-doing

38. MYSA has always tried to give as many youth as possible as many chances and different choices
as possible to learn-by-doing. Except for short-term training courses in key areas where technical ca-
pacity building is needed (e.g. coaching, refereeing, physiotherapy, etc), MYSA avoids bringing in out-
side volunteers and staff who might limit or reduce the opportunities for our own members to continue
testing and expanding their skills through learning-by-doing.

(g) Help youth to help themselves by helping others

39. All MYSA youth are provided with many opportunities and different activities for helping them-
selves by helping others. Every youth has some special talents to share with others and, while doing
so, they test and acquire new skills and experience. MYSA also helps its members build their own CVs
by awarding certificates for a wide range of achievements on and off the field which they can then
show to prospective employers.

(h) Help young leaders to stay in school

40. It is not enough to provide leadership training and opportunities if poverty then forces the young
leaders out of school. In MYSA all youth earn points for helping organize different activities on and off
the field. Those with the most points by age, gender and zone earn MYSA Leadership Awards which
are then paid to their school or training institution for their tuition, books and uniforms. Around 500
MYSA Leadership Awards are now given out annually.

(i) Ensure all meetings and records are open

41. From the beginning, MYSA has always kept full and accurate records on all its activities (e.g.
matches, cleanups, training courses, awards, etc). MYSA also always ensured that those records as
well as all financial accounts and meetings are open and public. In addition, MYSA’s financial ac-
counts are independently audited and published annually.

(j) Plan for organizational sustainability

42. Two of the crucial challenges in any organization are coping with rapid growth and with leadership
succession. During its second decade, MYSA managed to cope with the rapid expansion of its
membership, programmes and budget by remaining true to its basic principles and policies and by
gradually professionalizing without bureaucratizing its leadership and staff.
Commonwealth Conference 8 Glasgow, June 3-4, 2010

43. Leadership succession has never been a problem in MYSA as so many new, eager, committed
and talented young leaders emerge every year. Continuity is also maintained by recruiting all new
MYSA staff from among the best volunteer leaders and MYSA Leadership Awards winners.

(k) Plan for financial sustainability

44. MYSA wrestled with this chronic challenge for two decades: How to reduce donor dependence
and move toward financial self-sustainability when the families in your community are far too poor to
pay any fees for membership or for clearing garbage and other community services? MYSA’s re-
sponse has been consistent: it has never charged any fees for membership, for members participation
in any of its training or specialized activities or for its services to the community.

45. During its second decade, MYSA did start charging modest fees for visitors from abroad and for
external participants in its coaching, refereeing, AIDS prevention and other training courses. MYSA
also started charging for external technical support and advisory services to other organizations. How-
ever, that additional revenue remains small and MYSA’s budget is still dominated by donor funds. But
MYSA has succeeded in improving its financial sustainability by increasing the number of its partners
and significantly reducing its dependence on one or a few donors.

46. In 1994 plans were made and started for achieving financial self-sustainability with the formation
of the Mathare United professional team consisting entirely of players from MYSA. Then and still
today, development aid agencies do not fund professional football teams so Mathare United had to be
created as a legally separate company. But the plan was for the new professional team to generate
enough revenue from gate receipts, corporate sponsorships, transfer fees and branded products to
pay the players well and also gradually reduce MYSA’s donor dependence by covering some and
eventually all of its budget.

47. That was a good plan … except that it didn’t take into account the chronic corruption and mis-
11
management in our national football association. But prospects improved dramatically in the last few
years ago after the top clubs took over the ownership and management of the Kenyan Premier
League (KPL) which is now run in a fair, transparent, democratic and professional manner. Over a
third of all KPL matches are now broadcast live by Supersport in Kenya and Africa and fans are now
12
starting to fill the stadia again.

(l) Prepare and implement long-term strategic plans

48. Truth in advertising rules require me to admit that MYSA never had a long-term strategic plan.
During its first decade, MYSA had no major partners or significant funds and staff to plan with. During
its second decade, MYSA frankly struggled to prepare and implement the annual plans with its many
new partners and to meet their quarterly and annual reporting requirements. But last year the MYSA
leaders and staff realized that it was now necessary and timely to prepare a long-term strategic plan.

49. Comic Relief with the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation agreed to assist and also fund the pre-
paratory process which started with consultations with the MYSA leaders and members in all 16
zones. In November 2009 the zonal consultations were followed by an intensive 5-day workshop out-
side Nairobi involving an external consultant/animator plus 27 top elected MYSA leaders and senior
staff members. Their initial plan for 2010-19 was reviewed, improved and finalized by specialized
working groups over the next three months and then adopted by the MYSA Executive Council. The
MYSA leaders, staff and members are relieved and proud that they now have an agreed strategic plan
to help guide and focus the further development of MYSA during its third decade.

11
Munro, Bob, 2005, "Greed vs Good Governance: The Fight for Corruption-Free Football in Kenya", Report for
the PlaytheGame, 4th World Communications Conference on Governance in Sport, November 6-10, 2005 in
Copenhagen, Denmark. See also "Korruption im Sport" edited by Jens Weinrich, Forum Verlag, Leipzig, Ger-
many, pp. 153-168.
12
“Forget the English league, local thrill is back” by Alex Kiprotich, Standard, May 30, 2010, page 3.
Commonwealth Conference 9 Glasgow, June 3-4, 2010

Part II: The Perils of Poverty Reduction

Laudable Goals vs Vested Interests in the Slums
50. At this and other conferences and in our reports to our donors, those working on the frontlines in
Africa too often focus only on "the good, the true and the beautiful" about our organizations and our
laudable goals. But we rarely speak or write about the dark side of our work and especially about the
perils often faced by our organizations, leaders and staff. It is not all sweetness and light on the front-
lines. So, when asking me to address this conference, the organizers urged me to balance the record
by highlighting some of those dark forces, threats and risks.

51. The reality on the frontlines is that community-based organizations like MYSA which constantly
try to change the status quo are not always welcomed and appreciated by everyone in the slums. In
any organization or community, the status quo always has its own winners and losers. But any chan-
ges in the status quo also has winners and losers but they are not the same winners and losers. Any
changes in a huge and complex society like in the Mathare slums, even when those changes benefit
the community as a whole, are still seen as a threat and are resisted by those who benefit from main-
taining the status quo.

52. An indicative list follows of some of MYSA’s laudable goals and the threats they pose to some en-
trenched and influential interests in the Mathare slums.

(a) Give youth a sporting chance on and off the field

13
Criminal gangs find new recruits more easily among idle, aimless and frustrated youth

(b) Protect and improve community playing fields

Unscrupulous and often politically well connected predators want to illegally grab and sell
community playing fields

(c) Promote inter-ethnic understanding and solidarity among youth

Extortion gangs in the slums incite inter-ethnic tensions and violence so they can more
14
easily sell their “security” and protection services

(d) Reduce drug and alcohol abuse among youth

Drug dealers and illegal alcohol producers and sellers face a declining number of clients

(e) Give girls a sporting chance on and off the field

Local vice lords find their new recruits for prostitution among uneducated young girls who
lack ambition and alternatives

(f) Help talented young leaders stay in school

Some local politicians often see and fear young and well educated community leaders as
future competitors

(g) Ensure democratic election of the best youth leaders

Local politicians and leaders often want to parachute their own supporters into the executive
bodies and staff of successful community-based organizations and make it clear that their
continued support and cooperation depends on doing so

(h) Select staff and teams only on merit

Some ethnic and other groups insist they have a right to have their “representatives” in
key executive bodies, staff and all-star teams and try to disrupt activities when that “right”
is not recognized

13
See, for example, "Soccer stardom replaces guns and crime for youths in Kenyan slums", Associated Press,
October 25, 2006.
14
A serious outbreak of violence occurred in the Mathare slums in November 2006 when two ethnically-based
gangs started fighting over territory and the right to collect protection and other fees from the poor families and
small businesses. Sadly, it is the innocent mothers and children who suffer most. See, for example, "Gangs take
over but officialdom isn't moved" by Kipkoech Tanui, Standard, November 10, 2006, page 12, and "Thousands
flee their homes as slum death toll goes up: Women and children spend night in the cold" which was the front
page headline and lead news story in the Daily Nation on November 9, 2006.
Commonwealth Conference 10 Glasgow, June 3-4, 2010

(i) Ensure financial accountability and integrity

A few try to steal from the organization and, when caught, invoke ethnic discrimination and
other excuses to try to create divisions in the organization and community

(j) Make youth more aware of their rights

Some local politicians prefer less well-informed and more dependent and compliant constituents

(k) Help feed and free the forgotten kids in jail

This and other well-meaning projects expose the neglect of the poor in the slums by the local
15
authorities and national government

(l) Clear garbage and drainage ditches in the slums

Private medical clinics and dubious “doctors” and healers … and local coffin makers … thrive
on the high rates of disease, illness and deaths in the slums

(m) Stop corruption in national sports bodies

Corrupt sports officials launch media attacks on troublesome teams and their leaders, try to sus-
pend them from their meetings and leagues and, if that fails, punish them by manipulating their
16
fixtures and fixing their matches

53. If that frank and rather depressing list gives the impression that slums are difficult to change and
dangerous to work in, then you have gained a better understanding of the many tough challenges and
risks faced by those working on the frontlines of sport for development. But for the volunteer leaders
and staff in our organizations, that list merely describes some of their daily facts of life.

Conspicuous minority vs poor majority in the slums

54. However, if that sinister list also gives the impression that slums are largely full of drug dealers,
thugs, prostitutes, land-grabbers and corrupt local leaders, then that is wrong. They are only a small
but conspicuous minority who dominate the headlines on life in the slums. The huge majority actually
consists of unsung heroes. Over 70% of those living in the Mathare slums are honest and extremely
hard working mothers and their innocent children who bravely struggle together against high odds to
survive every day of their always precarious lives.

55. So, for our many good partners and friends in developed countries who review our many project
proposals and progress reports, please remember next time that there is also a dark and often hidden
side behind our laudable goals and glowing reports on our many achievements. While those achieve-
ments involved a lot of hard work, persistence and innovative effort, they also involved some serious
risk-taking by many courageous young changemakers in our communities and countries.

56. Finally, and most importantly, also remember that our impoverished young members and their
families need but also deserve our self-help programmes and your selfless support. In the Mathare
slums and many other poor urban and rural community around the world, there are no really bad kids
but only kids in bad circumstances. None of them chose to be poor but were simply born poor. In our
unfair world, they deserve a sporting chance on and off the field to help themselves, their families and
each other to get out of poverty.

15
"Doing the dirty job for City Commission in Mathare slums" by Ngugi wa Mbugua, Daily Nation, April 29, 1992.
16
See “How corruption hit the poorest first and hardest” in Munro, Bob, 2005, "Greed vs Good Governance: The
fight for corruption-free football in Kenya", Report for the PlaytheGame, 4th World Communications Conference
on Governance in Sport, November 6-10, 2005 in Copenhagen, Denmark, pages 9-10. Also, in his recent review
of two new books on African football, David Goldblatt wrote: “If African Soccerscapes gives us the bird's eye view,
Steve Bloomfield in Africa United drops to ground level. Unlike most accounts which focus on the leading teams
and nations, Bloomfield goes off the beaten track to places such as Kenya and Somalia. In Kenya he recounts the
role of football in challenging the culture of corruption, showing how the slums of Nairobi have produced some of
the continent's most innovative NGOs such as the Mathare Youth Sports Association which organises games for
30,000 kids in the poorest parts of the city in exchange for them providing the only waste sanitation services in
their communities.” “African Soccerscapes: How a continent changed the world’s game by Peter Alegi and Africa
United: How football explains Africa by Steve Bloomfield”, Book reviews by David Goldblatt, The Observer (UK),
May 30, 2010.
Commonwealth Conference 11 Glasgow, June 3-4, 2010

Part III
Development Partners vs Aid Donors

57. In the mid-1990s when MYSA was still struggling financially, a prominent northern NGO with large
projects and staff in Kenya signed a 2-year agreement with MYSA to provide significant funding for
new AIDS awareness and prevention initiatives among the youth in the Mathare and neighbouring
slums. As the agreement included funds for capacity building, MYSA hired two of its most experienced
and best volunteer youth leaders to develop and implement the joint project.

58. However, after only two months it became clear that some project officers in that NGO did not
really regard it as a joint project. Instead of advising and working with the two MYSA project leaders,
they started treating them as their junior field staff. While staying largely in their comfortable offices
downtown, they increasingly disregarded the views, ignored the proposals and criticized the reports of
the MYSA project leaders who, not surprisingly, became disheartened and despondent. The NGO
Country Director was alerted about the sad situation but proved reluctant to act. After a long soul-
searching discussion in the MYSA Executive Council and in a rare move for an aid recipient, MYSA
withdrew from the “joint” project and returned all of the remaining funds.

Good partners are good mentors

59. The main difference between development partners and aid donors is that a real partner never
acts like that. Instead, a real partner respects and supports the goals and priorities of the community-
based organizations and doesn’t try to impose their own donor-driven priorities. A real partner also
doesn’t stand on the sidelines and just demand progress reports and then criticize their contents or
late delivery. As no organization is ever perfect, a real partner doesn’t just bemoan other inevitable or-
ganizational weaknesses. Instead, a real partner gets involved in helping its partner write better and
timely reports and, after also helping identify together some key areas for improvement, then supports
its partner with targeted capacity building programmes.

60. Since the mid-1990s, MYSA has been fortunate in having a wide-range of real partners from dif-
ferent countries whose staff not only monitored the project funding and progress but also got person-
ally engaged in working closely with and supporting the young MYSA leaders and staff in improving
their project reporting and management skills.

61. For an organization like MYSA which is owned and run by the youth, good partners are also good
mentors. For example, in the mid-1990s when Johannes Sannesmoen of the Stromme Foundation in
Norway first came to MYSA, he quickly embraced our many organizational problems as personal chal-
lenges. For the next decade, Johannes would complete his main tasks in a few days but then kept
adding extra days to all his missions for holding special training sessions in which he shared with our
young staff his over 25 years of development experience and expertise in Africa.

Good partnerships provide mutual benefits

62. Another important aspect of any real development partnership is often overlooked: that success
depends on transcending the traditional and often lopsided donor-recipient relationship and providing
mutual benefits for both partners. While the reports on joint projects always include detailed descrip-
tions supported by impressive statistical charts on the results achieved with the funds provided by the
donor, those reports rarely cite and often ignore other important benefits for the donor/partner. A few
examples of tangible benefits for donor/partners include:
- helping reverse the decline in public interest and support for development aid in some donor
countries (e.g. sensitizing, re-focusing and increasing the understanding of adults and youth in
the donor country on international development issues and challenges)
- helping donors publicize, market and raise more funds for expanding their own programmes and
staff (e.g. an attractive and successful partnership project helps the donor raise more funds for
supporting new projects in other communities and countries)
Commonwealth Conference 12 Glasgow, June 3-4, 2010

- tackling key social problems like racism in the donor country (e.g. the partnership project between
MYSA and the youth in Brumunddal in Norway was cited as an innovative example of combating
17
racism by the Council if Europe during the 1999 European Year Against Racism)
- providing unique outreach capabilities to help specialized agencies reach targeted group more
quickly and effectively on key issues and threats (e.g. the partnership projects between MYSA
and the World Health Organization on stopping TB and with the International Labour Organization
on children’s rights and anti-child labour)
- improving implementation and reducing donor costs for projects in other communities and count-
ries (e.g. the trained staff from one project can advise and assist on the implementation of other
projects, often with greater effectiveness and much lower costs than northern expatriate experts
as for the MYSA/Dutch/KNVB initiative in the huge Kakuma Refugee Camp in northwest Kenya)
- helping private companies improve their corporate image and public profile through joint com-
munity service projects (e.g. the partnership projects between MYSA and Samsung, Sara Lee
and G4S Security Services in Kenya and Bjorn Borg AB in Sweden)

Is anything more important than creating new role models and leaders?

63. Finally, one of the most important attributes of a real partner is their willingness to look beyond
the measurable outputs of a project and also see the project not only as an end in itself but as a
means toward other larger and often unquantifiable goals as well. For example, in any organization or
community is anything more important than creating new heroes, role models and young leaders who
inspire other youth to get involved in improving their communities and countries?

64. MYSA teams have won many gold medals and trophies locally and globally. MYSA has also re-
ceived international awards for its pioneering integration of sport and community service activities.
However, by far the most important achievement of MYSA has been to create many new heroes and
role models on and off the field who provide new inspirational examples for the youth in the Mathare
slums as well as other poor urban and rural communities in Kenya.

65. Before MYSA, there were local heroes and role models in the Mathare slums. But they were not
always good role models as their success sometimes depended on breaking rather than respecting
the law. Moreover, before MYSA few Mathare youth even dreamt of playing for top Kenyan Premier
League clubs or for the national Harambee Stars team and top European clubs. Before MYSA, few
Mathare youth even dreamt of going to Kenyan or foreign universities or becoming a Rhodes Scholar
18
at Oxford University or qualifying as certified public accountants, actuaries, website designers, sales
and marketing executives or medical doctors. But today many Mathare youth now have those and
19
other career ambitions because previous MYSA members have already achieved those dreams.

66. Political leaders around the world are fond of saying that the youth are the leaders of tomorrow. In
MYSA that is already happening. For example, in the last election the head of the MYSA Jailed Kids
20
Project, 25-year Joel Achola, became the youngest elected Councillor in Nairobi and nationally. An-
other four previous MYSA members were also elected to the Nairobi City Council. For MYSA, the
youth are no longer the leaders of tomorrow. For MYSA, in their communities in the Mathare and
neighbouring slums and in the Nairobi City Council, the youth are already the leaders of today.

17
See "Mathare United stoppet rasistene i Brumunddal: Sparket hatet ut av byggda" by Eugene Laran, Dag-
bladet, Norway, July 25, 2003 and "Brobygging - Racism 10-0: Pa tidende aret fotballag fra Nairobis slum pa be-
sok til fotballcup i Brumunddal" by Marte Leland, Hamar Dagblad, Norway, July 26, 2003.
18
"Moses Mutuli: The tough road to Oxford University", Daily Nation, Kenya, November 23, 2003.
19
See “Making Dreams Come True: Sport and Community Development in the Mathare Valley Slums” by Preben
Lindoe, Compendius Forlag AS, Skarnes, Norway, 2001; "MYSA role models on local and national levels" by Marc
Broere and Pieter van der Houwen in "Unlikely Heroes: The Dynamics of African Sports", Uitgeverij De Arbeider-
spers, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2001, pp. 133-138; “Social Mobility through Sports: The Case of Selected
Members of the Mathare Youth Sports Association in Nairobi, Kenya” by Janet Musimbi, Kenyatta University,
Nairobi, 2004; "Kenya's Game of Life: Social dividends of soccer offer young players a future" by Jason Warick,
Star Phoenix, Regina, Saskatchewan, April 17, 2004, pp. E1-2; and "Creating heroes and role models: Why
MYSA is giving youth its their chance in the sporting world" by Elias Makori, International Sports Press
Association/AIPS magazine, December 2005, pp. 28-30.
20
“Age has nothing to do with it: Joel Achola, a.k.a. Coach Lule, 25, is thought to be the youngest councillor-elect
in the country” by Kamuzu Banda, Sunday Nation, January 27, 2008.