African successes: four public managers of Kenyan rural development
In 1973 Charles Karanja beat the odds. As general manager of the Kenya Tea Development Authority (KTDA), he took on the World Bank, the multinational tea corporations, and Kenya's Ministry of Agriculture. What's more, he won. At that time the KTDA had already started to acquire a reputation as one of the world's greatest success stories in rural development.[1] Begun in the waning days of colonialism in the late 1950s, the KTDA had succeeded in integrating African small farmers into tea production. Previously, tea had been the exclusive preserve of large estates, and earlier attempts in Asia to involve smallholders in its growth had failed.