Stephen Musee

Stephen is a Masters student at Clark University in their International Development and Social Change program. A Kenyan citizen, he holds a B.Sc. in Animal Production from Egerton University (1991). Over the years, he has worked in many different parts of Kenya managing community based rural extension programs at different capacities, in both the district and provincial levels,within the ministry of agriculture and rural development. He rose to the level of Provincial Director of Livestock Production (Eastern Province). Prior to joining Clark he was serving as a Divisional Agricultural Extension Coordinator with Kitui agricultural project, a DANIDA supported program. He worked with the communities in these semi-arid areas in developing alternative sources of income generating activities; improvement of natural resource management and conservation for improved food security and poverty alleviation.

As a career extensionst and development practitioner he has been fascinated by the possibility of harmonizing economic development with ecological stability at grassroots level in communities threatened with vulnerability to hunger and climate change phenomena such as drought. A typical situation of many arid and semi-arid areas in Kenya.

His recent research therefore focused on the impact of human actions on the environment and conservation. He specifically investigated how two communities living in Kenya's semi-arid lands of Kitui district have balanced their agricultural practices and poverty alleviation initiatives with their need for environmental conservation using participatory tools.