The Community Development Trust Fund  (CDTF) was established in 1996, with the purpose of developing an integrated approach towards contributing to poverty reduction in Kenya.  Over the past 15 years, hundreds of diverse projects addressing social, economic, biodiversity and environment priorities have been successfully financed through the Fund.  This has been achieved by addressing relevant, carefully selected development interventions that are people centred and focus on key priorities.

The key objective of CDTF is to promote sustainable development initiatives that are demand driven and aim to reduce poverty, create socio-economic advancement, conserve biodiversity, and improve ecological stability and environmental management.

PROGRAMMES IMPLEMENTED UNDER CDTF:

Previous Programmes
Focus on Social Infrastructure projects:
i)    The Community Development Programme Phase 1 (CDP I),  February 1998 – June 2001, which funded 235 projects

ii)    The community Development Programme Phase 2 (CDP II), July 2001-Dec 2006, implemented total of 273 projects

iii)    The Community Development Programme Phase 3 (CDP III),  Jan 2007 –Sep 2010, which has  funded 179 projects
 

Focus on sustainable Environmental Management
i)    The Biodiversity Conservation Programme (BCP), Sep 2000 –Sep 2005, implemented 37 projects

ii)    The Community Environmental Facility (CEF), Apr 2006 –Sep 2010, which has  funded a total of 25 projects

iii)    The Environmental Programme Support (EPS) – Funded by DANIDA/SIDA and implemented between  October  2007 and December 2010  which  funded 61 projects

Focus on Drought Mitigation:
i)    The Emergency Drought Programme (EDP) (Sep 2000 – June 2001) which funded 18 projects

Current programmes:
Because of the success of the above programmes, the European Union and the Government of Denmark agreed to provide funding for the fourth phase of the Community Development Programme (CDP-4) to run from October 2010 to September 2014. The goal of the CDP-4 is to reduce poverty in Kenya through empowering communities to initiate and implement community-based socio-economic infrastructure and environmental projects subsequently leading to better governance at the local, district, county and national levels. The purpose of the CDP- 4 is to support and mainstream community-led approaches to poverty reduction and sustainable management of natural resources by communities in rural and peri-urban areas. The CDP-4 has two components:

i)    Community Development Initiatives (CDI) component
Mandate is to community projects aimed at improving community access to basic services through improved social and economic rural infrastructure.

ii)    Community Environmental Facility Phase II(CEFII) component
 community driven initiatives that promote the conservation of community natural resources, enhanced environmental management and that reduce conflicts and threats to the environment.