The research phase was important in that it helped the scenario team have a better understanding of the context within which they were undertaking the project.

At the first workshop in Nanyuki, the organizing question for the project - and which guided the research phase was established: "How will Kenya's social, political, economic and cultural systems evolve over the next twenty years?"

To answer this question, a team of researchers was put together and structured in six clusters as follows:

1. Social capital development (embracing health, demography, education and skills acquistion);
2. Global and regional forces with impact on Kenya (embracing donor issues, globalization, regional integration, global financial systems, information technology, media, regional conflict);
3. Local forces driving economic growth (corruption, prospects in agriculture, industry, informal sector, domestic resource allocation, technology adoption, marginalization, leadership);
4. Management of the public sector and political processes (participation in political processes - i.e. civil society, legal and political institutions, tensions between institutions)
5. Social/cultural (ethnicity, race, religion, marginalization, conflict, gender, traditional coping systems)
6. Resource utilization (land use/abuse, tenure, water, minerals)

A series of interviews was also conducted with a number of Kenyans. The interviews were designed to learn what Kenyans assumed about the future of their country. Interviews were conducted at random, both in Kenya and abroad. Click on the links below for further details from the research.