Working on the whole, not just the parts: the systemic approach behind Trust 2 Impact

In western Kenya, the Nyando River catchment is caught in a cycle of flooding, land degradation and failing harvests. Trust 2 Impact, supported by Partners for Water, is working to break that cycle. Not by fixing isolated problems, but by addressing the system as a whole and ensuring that those who restore the land share in its benefits. Co-founder Victor Langenberg and Kenya Country Manager Professor Humphrey Oborah explain why that distinction matters.

Why fixing one thing is never enough

As a systems thinker and water expert, Victor Langenberg has spent four decades working on water systems in Africa. During that time, he has seen forests planted that never survived, water pumps that stopped working, and agro-programmes whose effects faded within five years. “When I travel through Africa, I see the remnants of projects where 80 percent has simply evaporated,” he says. “That is heartbreaking. ”

The reason, in his view, is structural. “Deforestation leads to soil degradation, soil degradation leads to flooding, flooding destroys harvests, destroyed harvests drive poverty, and poverty forces farmers to overuse the land,” he explains. “For lasting success, you cannot fix one part. You have to flip the system; step in together and turn that downward spiral into a cycle of restoration, resilience and opportunity.” That conviction is what led him to co-found Trust 2 Impact. “We aim to go about it completely differently.”

A view from the inside

Professor Humphrey Oborah brings a different but complementary perspective. Born and raised in the Nyando River catchment area, he knows this landscape from the inside. Four years ago, he joined as Trust 2 Impact’s Kenya Country Manager. “As a native of the region, I can speak with the community in their own dialect and align with their sufferings,” he says. “But I also wanted to bring my international connections and education in cultural and human science to find a lasting solution.”

Together with a dedicated team, they are now developing a long-term landscape restoration programme in the Nyando River catchment – combining agroforestry, water management and innovative financing to restore both ecosystems and livelihoods.

For background on the project and its wider context, see our earlier article Restoring Kenya’s Nyando River catchment: how Trust 2 Impact connects landscapes, livelihoods and long-term finance here.

Seeing the connections

To get to grips with what is happening in the Nyando catchment, Trust 2 Impact starts with maps. Causal loop diagramming is a systems thinking tool that charts how different factors influence and reinforce each other. It reveals where a well-placed intervention can trigger a chain of positive change. “We map the feedback loops between water, soil, agriculture, income and governance to find where small interventions can generate large effects,” explains Victor.

“When we looked at the Nyando River catchment systemically, deforestation, soil degradation, flooding, poverty and weak economic alternatives were all feeding into each other,” says Humphrey. “So instead of simply planting trees, we integrated landscape restoration with livelihoods, regenerative agriculture and local economic empowerment – because communities are more likely to protect ecosystems when restoration also improves their income and resilience.”

The knowledge is already there

Working closely with local communities is central to the programme. Victor is sometimes frustrated by the gap between knowledge and action. “The knowledge of how to work with the land – how to prepare seeds, read the landscape and the water, restore it – is there, but it’s hidden,” he says. “It needs to come out and be taken seriously. It’s often locked inside communities and academic papers, but there is no structure yet to connect it to financing and markets.”

Humphrey recognises the same pattern. “In many cases, communities already understood changes in rainfall patterns and soil fertility decline long before formal data confirmed it,” he says. “What was missing was a structured platform connecting that lived experience to financing mechanisms, restoration science, and economic opportunities.” Trust 2 Impact aims to do that.

This connects to a broader assumption Humphrey has consistently challenged: that communities resist change. “People are not resistant to change, they are resistant to exclusion from the benefits of change,” he says. Once communities see a credible pathway towards resilience and economic inclusion, their response shifts, and the numbers bear that out. Today, more than 20,000 community members are engaged in the programme – a strong foundation for the 60,000 hectares of agroforestry and riparian restoration the team aims to achieve across the Nyando catchment.

If it works here, what does it prove?

The Nyando catchment was chosen deliberately. It is one of the most degraded river systems on earth, but it also has high potential for recovery. “If we can fix the Nyando catchment area, we fix more than that,” Victor says. “Because what comes out of that river ends up in Lake Victoria. Improve the catchment and the whole lake system benefits, including the three countries surrounding it.”

“If this approach succeeds, it proves that climate restoration can simultaneously become an environmental solution, a poverty reduction strategy, and a green economic development model,” Humphrey says. “Carbon credit and climate finance projects work best when they are rooted in community ownership, systems thinking, and inclusive economic participation, not isolated technical interventions.”

A model worth repeating

Replication across the Lake Victoria basin would require long-term financing, local capacity-building and transparent governance. But above all, a shift in perspective. “Most importantly,” Humphrey concludes, “replication requires seeing ecosystems and communities not as separate issues, but as one interconnected living system. That is the real lesson emerging from Nyando.”

This is the second of a series of three articles. Read the first article and stay tuned for more in-depth insights.