Grassroots Economics

Grassroots Economics Foundation (GrE) is a nonprofit organisation focused on empowering marginalised communities by developing decentralised economic systems, promoting social equity, and facilitating ecosystem restoration.

Founded in 2009, it has created innovative financial tools like Community Inclusion Currencies (CICs) and the Commitment Pooling Protocol, which help communities manage local resources, foster mutual aid, and regenerate ecosystems through practices like agroforestry, soil conservation, and water management. By merging traditional systems of mutual aid with modern technology, including blockchain, GrE has built resilient and inclusive economic models.

GrE operates in diverse environments across East Africa, including urban, rural, peri-urban, and refugee areas, especially in Kenya. These regions face common challenges like high unemployment, limited financial services, and environmental degradation due to deforestation and unsustainable land use. Despite these issues, these communities possess valuable cultural heritage and traditional ecological knowledge. GrE taps into this wisdom to restore ecosystems and reinvigorate economic and social structures.

Since its inception, GrE has:

  • Revitalised ‘Mwerya’, a traditional mutual aid system, to promote community-led resource coordination in the modern context.
  • Helped over 100 communities establish CICs (local currencies that allow communities to continue trading even when national currency is scarce), facilitating more than 1 million peer-to-peer transactions. This has reduced poverty and encouraged local trade without relying on national currencies.
  • Restored over 1,200 farms and supported regenerative agroforestry across thousands of acres, improving food security and benefiting over 14,000 people.
  • Community, Ecosystems, Networks
  • 2025
  • Established Projects
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