Harambee, meaning "pull together" in Swahili, became Jomo Kenyatta's signature development philosophy and national mobilization strategy. Introduced immediately after independence, the harambee system encouraged communities to pool resources for building schools, health clinics, water projects, and other infrastructure, with the promise that government would supplement local efforts. At its best, harambee built thousands of schools and clinics, fostering a culture of self-reliance and community cooperation. At its worst, it became a vehicle for political patronage, a way for politicians to buy loyalty through showy government contributions while ordinary citizens bore the actual costs of development.
The harambee concept had roots in traditional African communal labor practices, particularly among the Kikuyu, where community members would come together to help build homes, clear land, or harvest crops. Kenyatta, a master of cultural symbolism, transformed this tradition into a national philosophy. His first official act as Prime Minister on June 1, 1963, was to declare "harambee" the national motto, and he began attending fundraising ceremonies where communities would present their development needs and government officials would pledge contributions.
The system worked through localized fundraising events called harambee meetings. A community would identify a need—a new primary school, a dispensary, a cattle dip—and organize a fundraising event. Local leaders, businesspeople, and ordinary citizens would contribute money, labor, or materials. The event would be publicized, and if successful in attracting government attention, a minister or MP would attend, bringing a government check and the president's blessings.
The presence of government officials at harambee events was critical. A minister attending meant not just a financial contribution but also political endorsement. It signaled that the community was loyal to KANU and to Kenyatta, and that future development resources would flow their way. Conversely, communities in areas that had supported the Kenya People's Union or that were seen as politically unreliable found their harambee events ignored by government officials, their schools and clinics built entirely through local effort with no state support.
Mbiyu Koinange played a central role in managing the harambee system from State House. He tracked which communities were organizing harambees, which politicians were attending and contributing, and who was using the events to build independent political bases. Harambee became an intelligence-gathering mechanism, a way for the government to monitor loyalty and identify potential challengers who might be mobilizing grassroots support outside formal KANU structures.
The economic impact of harambee was substantial. By the mid-1970s, thousands of primary schools and hundreds of secondary schools had been built through harambee contributions, educating a generation of Kenyans who might otherwise have lacked access. Health clinics, water projects, and community centers proliferated, particularly in rural areas where government infrastructure was thin. The spirit of self-reliance that harambee fostered became a source of national pride.
But the system also had serious downsides. It effectively privatized development, shifting costs from the government budget to ordinary citizens. Communities in wealthy areas could raise more money and build better facilities, while poor areas struggled. This reinforced regional inequality. Central Province, home to the Kikuyu elite and the center of political power, attracted more government contributions to harambees and built superior infrastructure, while marginalized regions like North Eastern Province or parts of Nyanza saw little harambee activity and even less government support.
Harambee also became a tool for corruption. Politicians would pledge large government contributions at harambee events, earning public credit and political loyalty, but the promised money often arrived late, in reduced amounts, or not at all. Some government contributions came from diverted development funds meant for other purposes. And the requirement that communities contribute first before receiving government support meant that the poorest, who needed help most, were least able to qualify for it.
The system entrenched political patronage. MPs and ministers used harambee contributions to build personal followings in their constituencies. They would route government funds through their own offices, ensuring that communities understood that development came from individual politicians' generosity rather than from citizens' rights. This undermined accountability. When schools lacked teachers or clinics lacked medicine, communities blamed local administrators rather than demanding systemic fixes from government.
Critics of harambee, including Oginga Odinga and the KPU, argued that development was the government's responsibility, that taxes should pay for schools and clinics, and that harambee allowed the state to abdicate its obligations while claiming credit for development it had not funded. They pointed out that harambee disproportionately burdened the poor, who contributed labor and small donations to build facilities that the wealthy then accessed alongside them.
The harambee culture persisted beyond the Kenyatta era. Daniel arap Moi continued and even expanded the system, making harambee contributions a mandatory part of political life. In the 1990s and 2000s, harambee became increasingly associated with money laundering and campaign finance, with politicians using harambee events to distribute illicit cash to constituents in exchange for votes. But the core idea, that communities should self-organize for development and that government would supplement local initiative, remained central to Kenyan development discourse.
Harambee represented both the promise and the betrayal of Kenyan independence. It demonstrated genuine community mobilization and self-reliance, proving that Kenyans could build institutions without waiting for external assistance. But it also allowed the state to evade responsibility for providing basic services, entrenched political patronage, and reinforced inequality between regions and communities. Like so much of Kenyatta's legacy, harambee was both development and exploitation, empowerment and control, wrapped together in a single policy.
See Also
- Political Patronage Kenyatta Era
- Mbiyu Koinange
- KANU One-Party Dominance
- Kenyatta and Oginga Odinga
- GEMA - Gikuyu Embu Meru Association
- Provincial Administration Kenyatta Era
- Land Policy Post-Independence
Sources
- Holmquist, Frank, Frederick Weaver, and Michael Ford. "The Structural Development of Kenya's Political Economy." African Studies Review 37, no. 1 (1994): 69-105. https://www.jstor.org/stable/525114
- Mbithi, Philip M., and Rasmus Rasmusson. Self Reliance in Kenya: The Case of Harambee. Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1977. https://www.worldcat.org/title/self-reliance-in-kenya/oclc/4276523
- Branch, Daniel. Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963-2011. Yale University Press, 2011. https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300141184/kenya