Christine Sidi on restoring Ngong Road Forest, creating jobs and giving Nairobi another green space

Nairobi’s need for accessible green space is giving a new dimension to the work being done at Ngong Road Forest. The I&M Foundation Ngong Road Forest project combines forest restoration with community employment and improvements intended to make the urban forest safer and more accessible, offering residents another place for recreation and wellbeing beyond the city’s better-known green spaces.

For Christine Sidi Katembo-Marambii, Sustainability Team Lead and Sustainability Coordinator at I&M Bank and a Project Champion within the I&M Foundation, the most meaningful measure of the intervention is impact. Speaking during the project handover, she described that impact through the forest itself, the people involved in restoring it and the possibility of residents taking greater ownership of the space.

The figures attached to the project are substantial. The initiative has rehabilitated 50 hectares and supported the planting of 50,000 trees, creating a larger restored landscape within Nairobi. Those numbers matter, but the project’s significance lies in what happens around them: whether the trees survive, whether the forest becomes more usable and whether the communities living nearby have a reason to protect what has been restored.

A forest project measured beyond tree planting

Project Imarisha, the I&M Foundation’s wider intervention at Ngong Forest, was backed by KSh162 million and designed as a multi-year conservation effort rather than a single tree-planting event. The work has included removing invasive species, developing nature trails and rehabilitating degraded forest areas.

The scale of that work becomes clearer when viewed through the project’s employment component. The initiative created 682 restoration-related jobs, with recruitment focused on people from surrounding communities including Kibera, Lang’ata and Dagoretti South. Workers have been involved in clearing invasive vegetation, restoring degraded sections and developing nature trails.

That approach gives the environmental work an economic dimension. A forest can provide ecological value to an entire city, but the people living closest to it also need tangible reasons to see conservation as something that benefits them. By putting local workers directly into restoration activities, the project connects environmental improvement with household income and community participation.

Christine’s comments point to the same connection. She described communities involved in planting trees as having experienced improved livelihoods, while stronger relationships have developed around the forest. That makes the restoration story broader than the number of seedlings put into the ground.

Making Ngong Road Forest more accessible

Access is another important part of the project. The intervention includes infrastructure intended to protect the forest while making it easier for people to enter and use it, including electrified fencing and new access points. Nature trails are also part of the restoration programme.

This matters because Nairobi’s urban forests perform several functions at once. They provide habitat and tree cover, but they can also become places for walking, recreation, education and quiet away from the density of the city. Christine described the restored space as offering residents another option for wellness and contact with nature, particularly in a city where Karura Forest has become a familiar destination for such activities.

The comparison with Karura should therefore be understood as a question of capacity rather than competition. A second accessible forest space gives Nairobi residents another destination while spreading recreational use across more of the city’s green infrastructure. Ngong Road Forest can also create opportunities around ecotourism and local services as public use grows.

Restoration creates an economic link with surrounding communities

The employment numbers give the project one of its clearest social dimensions. Creating hundreds of restoration jobs means environmental spending reaches households around the forest rather than remaining confined to contractors or project administration.

There is also a potential second layer to that economic model. The project has envisaged opportunities around a tree nursery, local vendors, guides and other services that could benefit as the forest becomes a safer and more attractive destination. The Ngong Community Forest Association could also gain a potential revenue stream through nursery activities.

That is where the idea of “Restoration Economics” becomes useful. Conservation requires money, labour and institutions, but it can also generate economic activity when a restored natural asset is properly managed. The challenge is to make sure those benefits continue after the initial project funding and restoration work have ended.

I&M Foundation’s funding structure is relevant here. The Foundation’s social impact budget is tied to 2% of I&M Bank Kenya’s annual profit before tax, providing a defined funding mechanism for its programmes. Project Imarisha sits within the Foundation’s broader approach to longer-term social and environmental investment.

From planting trees to protecting a public asset

For Christine, one of the clearest measures of success would be greater awareness of what Nairobi has in its forests and stronger public commitment to protecting it. That is an important distinction because planting marks the beginning of restoration, while stewardship determines whether the environmental gains endure.

She also pointed to cleaner air and a healthier ecosystem as outcomes of having more trees in the city. Those benefits are difficult to reduce to a single project metric because they accumulate through the condition of the wider landscape. The more meaningful test will be whether the restored areas remain healthy, whether invasive species are kept under control and whether the public uses the forest responsibly.

Public participation matters just as much. When residents see a forest as a shared public good, conservation can become part of everyday civic behaviour rather than something left entirely to government agencies, conservation groups or corporate sponsors.

That principle also fits the community-centred design of Project Imarisha. The project has drawn labour from neighbourhoods surrounding the forest, while infrastructure and trails are intended to make the space safer and more usable.

What lasting impact could look like

The handover provides a useful point at which to judge the project by what comes next. The trees will need care, the restored areas will need protection and the economic opportunities around the forest will have to mature if the intervention is to deliver benefits beyond its initial implementation period.

The 50 hectares and 50,000 trees provide an important snapshot of the physical work. The community jobs show how that work has translated into livelihoods, while the access infrastructure and trails indicate an effort to connect conservation with public use.

But the most consequential measure may be harder to count: whether Nairobi residents begin to regard restored urban forest as something that belongs in the city’s daily life and deserves their protection.

That is the impact Christine Sidi Katembo-Marambii ultimately describes. The ambition is to leave Nairobi with more than trees. It is to leave behind a functioning green space, stronger community participation and a public asset that people understand well enough to help protect.

For a city under constant pressure from development and competing demands for land, that may prove to be the project’s most durable contribution.

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