Strengthening Community Collaboration Strategy for Food Security and Social Transformation: The Role of Faith-Based Organisations in Isiolo County, Kenya

Abstract

Faith-based organisations (FBOs) are important non-state actors in food security interventions because they connect communities with resources, knowledge, public institutions, and local social networks. Yet food insecurity persists in Kenya's arid and semi-arid lands, raising questions about whether FBO-community collaboration is a genuinely shared process or an occasional program activity. This study examined the influence of FBOs' community collaborative strategy on food security and social transformation in Isiolo County, Kenya. A concurrent transformative mixed-methods research design was used. Questionnaires were completed by 36 leaders from 13 qualifying FBOs, and qualitative evidence came from four focus group discussions with 36 community representatives and 11 key informant interviews with agricultural officers. Data were analysed using frequencies, percentages, Pearson product-moment correlation, and thematic analysis. Of the 36 leaders, 83.3% disagreed that FBOs engage communities in problem-posing and shared solution-finding, and 69.4% disagreed that stakeholder partnerships and formal community collaboration policies were adequately established. Responses on cross-sector partnerships were mixed: 58.3% disagreed and 36.1% agreed that such partnerships exist. Nevertheless, community collaboration indicators correlated strongly with faith membership, chamas (community savings groups), table banking, and savings and credit cooperative membership (r = .8166 to .9547). Collaboration therefore operates mainly through existing social-capital structures, and its transformative potential depends on institutionalised shared decision-making. FBOs can strengthen food security and social transformation by formalising partnerships, establishing regular problem-posing forums, and working through trusted community institutions.