Case Study: Commitment Pooling in Binguni and Mbele, Kenya¶

🌍 Trapped Abundance¶

In a rural Kenyan region, 400 households struggle with chronic money scarcity, but abundant latent capacity: time, skills, natural resources, and local needs. Humanitarian support and remittances provide temporary relief, but don’t unlock endogenous development.

“There is land to farm and people to farm it — but no way to coordinate those capacities.”

The community's greatest need is food sovereignty. They have land, seeds, and labor, but they lack a metabolic trust system to route commitments. They are stuck in a cycle of subsistence.

Within this region, one self-organized group—Binguni—operates as a savings collective (a chama/VSLA), supporting members through pooled funds. But with limited liquidity, their dreams of community farming remain unfulfilled.

🧭 Enter: Commitment Pooling¶

A Core Service Provider (CSP) introduces Binguni to Commitment Pooling, a regenerative coordination protocol enabling them to recognize and activate trust among themselves.

Through workshops, the group learns that:

Commitments are not assets—they are promises of future contributions.
Vouchers can represent those promises, traceable and redeemable.
A Commitment Pool allows members to seed their promises and withdraw others’, creating a metabolic flow of goods, services, and labor.

The CSP helps Binguni map their collective capacity, and the group discovers over 50,000 KES worth of monthly redeemable value—from seeds and water to cooking and labor.

They decide to co-issue a Community Asset Voucher (CAV) named BIGI, backed by this internal value.

🤝 Forming a Trust Protocol¶

To activate their CAV system, the Binguni group formalizes three agreements:

Economic Commons Agreement — Members agree to enter a shared ecosystem based on trust, fulfillment, and community rules.
Membership Agreement — They:
Quantify and audit individual commitments (e.g. James commits 10kg seeds worth 2500 KES).
Set group issuance limits (max 50,000 BIGIs).
Agree on internal credit limits and a demurrage system (e.g., 2% monthly decay to encourage flow).
Create a shared reserve by pooling part of their vouchers (e.g., 200 BIGIs each).
CU Intermember Agreement — Defines roles of the CSP (ledger access, arbitration, training).

This trust fabric enables Binguni to mint 50,000 BIGIs, with 2,300 going to each member and 4,000 held in the communal pool for a shared farm project.

🔁 Circulation: Commitments Come Alive¶

Commitment Pooling begins:

James gives 20 BIGIs to Pamela for cakes.
Pamela pays Joyce 200 BIGIs for help cooking.
Joyce spends 300 BIGIs on water from John.

Midday snapshot:

Member	BIGI Balance
Pamela	2120
Joyce	2200
John	2600

At a community market, Pamela sells potatoes: - 50 sold in BIGIs to Binguni members = 250 BIGIs - 50 sold in shillings = 250 KES

Her balance rises to 2370 BIGIs + 250 KES. This dual liquidity model boosts both savings and circulation.

🌾 Project Activation¶

Binguni uses their pooled reserve to jumpstart a community farm, but lack enough labor. They approach a neighboring group—Mbele, whose women farmers agree to accept BIGIs as partial payment.

Trust has now crossed group boundaries, routed through redeemed commitments.

Inspired, Mbele decides to form their own Commitment Pool and issue MBELE vouchers, backed by their services (e.g., erosion control, water management).

Binguni and Mbele cross-accept each other’s vouchers. Their pools are distinct, but interoperable—forming a meshed commons.

“BIGIs and MBELEs start to flow between the groups, stitching capacity into coordination.”

🌱 Coordination and Learning¶

Both groups invest part of their reserve vouchers into group businesses—like a maize mill and agroforestry training. The CSP provides skill-building and protocol stewardship, ensuring that:

Trust flows are conserved
Commitments are fulfilled
Exchange remains relational, not extractive

John, the plow-owner, begins accepting both BIGIs and MBELEs, confident in their redeemability.

The metabolic economy has begun.

🤲 Humanitarian Support (Reimagined)¶

An aid agency observes the thriving local trade and decides to support the system rather than override it.

Two Options:¶

Infrastructure Investment: Buy assets (e.g., boreholes, mills) that expand productive capacity—enabling more commitments and larger pools.
CAV Prepurchase: Buy BIGIs and MBELEs from the groups (like CVA), and redistribute to vulnerable households—routing dignity through redemption.

This support creates local multiplier effects rather than extraction. Vouchers circulate multiple times before being redeemed, and every redemption is a fulfilled promise, not a sale.

“Instead of aid leaving the community in one transaction, it bounces—amplifying trust.”

🪴 Lessons from Binguni and Mbele¶

A community’s lack of money is not a lack of value—it’s a lack of memory and coordination.
Commitment Pooling restores that memory by recording, authenticating, and routing promises.
CAVs are not currency—they’re metabolic trust tokens.

This is not a market. It is a living system of care, craft, and commitment.

Last update: 2025-07-27