As it is well known, Prime Minister Raila Odinga has been in the forefront in championing the cause of the people in all his public life. In this article however, we shall highlight some of the projects he has spearheaded with notable success during his premiership.

The flagship projects include infrastructure development, reforms, environment, social protection, youth and employment and sports.

The state of our infrastructure and especially roads is a concern that the Prime Minister has prioritized in his development agenda.

The country's economy cannot grow as expected with the poor road network and hence the importance he attaches on road construction. It is on this premise that recently the Prime Minister in response to the concerns raised by residents of Eastleigh about the poor state of infrastructure in the area visited the estate to assess the situation.

During the visit, Mr. Odinga directed the immediate formation of an inter-Ministerial committee to address the dilapidated state of infrastructure in the area.

The Prime tasked the committee including professionals from the Ministry of Local government, Nairobi Metropolitan, Roads, Public works and the city council of Nairobi to come up with short term to medium term solutions to the plight of the business community in Eastleigh.

He instructed the committee to specifically address the collapsed road network in the area, street lightning, and sewage and garbage collection and make appropriate recommendations to the government. He emphasized that as tax payers, the residents deserved good services.

The Prime Minister at the same time hit out at contractors who did shoddy work, saying some of the bad roads in the area could be attributed to poor workmanship on the part of the contractors. The Premier warned that contractors doing substandard work will be denied government contracts.

The plight of the poor is at the very heart of the Prime Minister's push to have equity in Kenya. Some of the issues plaguing the poor, especially the urban poor is lack of housing or poor housing. In this regard, the Prime Minister in whose constituency lies the largest slum in the country and probably in this region, has spearhead slum upgrading project in Kibera .

Under the project at least 600 households in Soweto East will be relocated to modern housing units and continue paying the same rent they have been paying landlords for the shanties.

In this project the beneficiaries will occupy 608 self contained, two bed roomed housing units in a move aimed at ensuring that deserving people benefited. The next phase of the slum upgrading project would include construction of social amenities like schools, health facilities and recreational centre's so that slum dwellers could live in a humane environment.

This project is to be scaled up to cover the whole of Kibera and other slum areas in major cities and towns in the country. The government is determined to phase out the shanties and fight poverty and improve the living standards of the common man.

Perennial floods affecting parts of the country is another issue that the government has been grabbling with year in year out. Mr. Odinga as coordinator and supervisor of government affairs has led government efforts in finding a lasting solution to the floods and mitigate its effects in the country.

Consequently, he has directed the ministries of Water, Energy and Regional Development to formulate a sustainable work plan on ways of containing the rain fed floods in low lying parts of the country. The Premier wants the flood waters harnessed and put to good use.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga's stand on environmental protection is well known. He has repeatedly called for conservations efforts to ensure that our environment is well protected. For instance, Mr. Odinga formed a task force to recommend ways and means of restoring the Mau complex to its original state. The deforestation of the Mau is a threat to many rivers that originate in the complex.

In his characteristic humane manner, the PM has assured those who will be affected by the move to restore the Mau complex that they will be offered alternative settlement. The Plan is to re-plant trees in the deforested settlement areas to protect rivers originating from the water tower from drying up.

Rivers originating from the Mau flow into Lake Victoria and provide livelihood to hundreds of thousands of people and animals downstream including in the world famous Masai Mara and as far as Serengeti in the neighbouring Tanzania. Water from the rivers has also been harnessed to generate electricity as is the case with Sondu Miriu power plant.

The reform agenda is also on top of the PM's priority list. He is keen on reforms that will see the strengthening of the country's institutions. Institutions that can weather any economic, social and political situation.

He therefore has been advocating for give and take among perceived political adversaries in order to achieve this reform agenda. He says the changes must be done in the Judiciary, legislature and the executive to bring on board policies that are in tandem with the best practices worldwide.

The recently launched Kazi kwa Vijana programme has received impetus from the Prime Minister who together with President Kibaki launched the programme to provide jobs to an estimated 300,000 youth in the country.

The committee entrusted with the project and chaired by the PM has earmarked ksh 20 million for afforestation   activities as every chief is expected to plant at least 1,000 trees in their areas of jurisdiction.  Since the launch recently, allocation to water projects has been scaled up from 500 million to Ksh 725 million.

The Kazi Kwa Vijana programme is geared towards stemming frustrations over joblessness, poverty and famine. It is a Cabinet initiative to alleviate suffering attributed to famine, unemployment and poverty.It is one of the subsidies that the government has been rolling out in recent years to cushion the poor. Other such interventions include school feeding program and famine relief food.

The PM has not ignored sports either, in one of his recent efforts the he helped source a coach for the national football team, Harambee stars. The new coach Antoine Hey from Germany is expected to prepare the national team to participate in the 2010 world cup championships in South Africa.

During the unveiling of the new coach the PM said he had been sourced through the cooperation between the Kenya Government and the Federal Government of Germany.

Other than football, the Prime Minister is keen on the development of athletics, rugby, volleyball and other sporting activities in the country