The ASALs cover about 80% of the total land surface and are home for about 25% of the human population. The numerous woodlands, bush lands and wooded grasslands, have varying potentials in terms of timber and non-wood wood tree products. These forest formations are at different states of conservation depending on land tenure, management interventions and population pressure and are progressively being degraded and reduced in coverage. Under the prevailing low technology production systems, coupled with the unreliable rainfall regimes, the ASALs are characterised with poor agricultural productivity and high incidences of poverty. The threat to the livelihoods of the inhabitants of the ASALs is thus real which calls for practical interventions so as to improve on the livelihood conditions of the people in these areas. It is true that tree-based production systems have more resilience to the vagaries of weather and in conditions of improved technological inputs; such systems hold a lot of promise in improving the productivity of the ASALs. If tapped, the semi arid lands have the requisite potential to produce wood biomass for the wood based industries, create employment and wealth and indirectly contribute to conservation of the closed canopy forests.

The involvement of Government of Japan (GOJ) in the forestry sector in Kenya dates back to the middle 1980's. The initial assistance was through the Social Forestry Training Project (SFTP), which was implemented from 1985 to 1997. SFTP's main focus was on technology development on tree nursery establishment and tree planting in the semi-arid areas and to provide training in social forestry. The Social Forestry Extension Model Development Project (SOFEM) followed SFTP and was implemented for five years ending November 2002. The main output of SOFEM was the development of a model through the establishment of farm forests by the local residents. During the terminal evaluation in 2002, the review mission recommended the necessity to give further support to the extension component so that more impact could be created in the development of farm forestry in the semi-arid areas. It is in this context that the Government of Kenya (GOK) requested for technical cooperation under this project from the Government of Japan.