Kenya’s conservation authorities should consider raising the entrance fees for foreign tourists to the iconic Maasai Mara National Park by US$ 6.90 per person, per day spent in the park, in order to boost the park’s coffers.
The EfD Network proudly presents the new audiovisual production: “The Ecosystem Services Accounting for Development Program (ESAforD)” we encourage all our network to watch and enjoy the video!
The Ecosystem Services Accounting for Development Program (ESAfD) participated in the 6th World Congress of Environmental and Resource Economists through several appearances in academic sessions and a special policy session coordinated by the ESAforD program researchers.
The award-winning paper by Fuente et al. (2016) is a product of collaboration between EfD and Nairobi City Water and Sewer Company. It uses data on household socioeconomic status and metered water use in order to evaluate the distributional incidence of subsidies delivered through the water tariff in Nairobi.
This year the EfD annual meeting will be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from: October 27-30, 2017. It is hosted by the Environment and Climate Research Center (EfD - Ethiopia) and the EfD Secretariat. The EfD annual meeting is a forum to bring together researchers from all EfD centers and their collaborators. EfD would also like to attract key stakeholders for exchange of research ideas. Updates for participants will be displayed here.
The Working Group in African Political Economy (WGAPE) is pleased to announce a special international meeting to be held January 26-28, 2018 at New York University-Abu Dhabi.
The African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) In Partnership with GIZ and the World Bank are calling for Fellowships for a PhD specialization Course on Land Economics and Governance (Jan 7- Feb 11, 2018).
Wilfred Nyangena, Senior Lecturer, School of Economics, University of Nairobi passed away on July 17th, 2017 after a long and brave struggle against cancer. Wilfred did his PhD in Environmental Economics at the University of Gothenburg and on his return to Kenya he became the founder and first director of EfD-Kenya.
Duke welcomed over 70 scholars and practitioners from 15 countries for the second annual Sustainable Energy Transitions Initiative (SETI) Meeting, May 9-11, 2017.
Researchers at EfD-Kenya have found new evidence that nutritional poverty is linked with climate change and variability. ‘In Kenya and other African countries, a majority of farmers depend on rainfall that is increasingly unpredictable,’ said Dr Richard Mulwa, Senior Research Associate at EfD-Kenya and one of the lead investigators in the study. ‘Also, increasing temperature reduces food production. Therefore, it is critical for these farmers to change their farming practices in response to climate change’.
A recent study in Kenya shows that climate change and variability will increase food insecurity and that different food crops will respond differently to climate change variables. The study also highlights the different factors influencing food insecurity in a changing climate. This is important information for farmers as well as the government.
The EfD research project: Short- and long-term effects of exogenously reducing water collection times on school attendance, hours studying and time use: Meru County, Kenya; involves an experiment to reduce water collection time in a rural area in Kenya. This reduction is an important form of "time poverty" alleviation.
SETI (http://seti.duke.edu/) invites concept notes to seed collaborative research related to energy transitions. We particularly welcome proposals for work related to the SETI priority themes, including: Consequences of energy poverty, defined as a lack of reliable access to electricity and other modern fuels Drivers of the energy transition in low- and middle-income contexts, including lessons from past experiences Impacts of energy transitions at various scales (households, firms, and the regional and global environment) Policy levers and solutions to speed the energy transition; and analysis of their effectiveness Notable gaps in research on energy transitions
We are very pleased to announce that the second meeting of the Sustainable Energy TransitionsInitiative (SETI) will take place May 9-11 at Duke University (Durham, NC).
Duke Kunshan University is now accepting applications for the new international Master of Environmental Policy (iMEP) Program. The iMEP program is a two-year degree offered jointly by Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy and Nicholas School of the Environment. Students will study core courses in both environmental management and public policy at Duke Kunshan University (China) and Duke University (United States). We would really appreciate it if you could share this information with people who might be interested.
On January 29th 2017 the Alliance Manchester Business School at the University of Manchester (UK) will launch a sequence of two Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) on Water Supply and Sanitation Policy in Developing Countries, taught by Professor Dale Whittington and Dr Duncan Thomas.
Healthy forests in sub-Saharan Africa are an important source of wild pollinators, and thus support agricultural productivity and food security in the region, a conference in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, heard this November.
Jane Mariara, Center director of EfD Kenya, has been appointed as Interim Executive Director of PEP (Partnership for Economic Policy). Prof. Mariara has been involved with PEP for many years and in a variety of roles, from researcher to resource person to deputy director, and most recently as member of the PMMA program committee.
The Environment for Development Kenya (EfD-Kenya) in collaboration with the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA) held a Policy Research workshop at the La Mada Hotel on July 14th – 15th 2016. The objective of the workshop was to share and discuss proposals for 2017 funding and also finalize drafting of the Research Policy Review/Strategy for 2016-2020.
EfD Kenya in collaboration with the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis – (KIPPRA) held its Research Day on March 3rd 2016, at the Nairobi Safari Club, Nairobi.
Academic research made a real connection with the lives of poor residents of Nairobi, Kenya, when the Nairobi City Water and Sewer Company’s decreased the price for water bought at public kiosks.
Like many water utilities across the globe, Nairobi City Water and Sewer Company implements an increasing block tariff. Recent research conducted by EfD Kenya, however, finds that the increasing block tariff implemented in Nairobi does not effectively target subsidies to low-income households. Estimates suggest that non-poor households receive over 80 per cent of the subsidies.
EfD Kenya recently held it's 2015 Research Day on 26th February at Hillpark Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya. EfD Kenya and KIPPRA presented the organisations' ongoing research in the water, extractive minerals and climate change sectors.
EfD Kenya is looking for a researcher to participate in a three year research project in ecosystem service accounting. The project is a collaboration with the Environment for Development Centers (EfD) in Chile, Costa Rica, China, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Sweden as well as the World Bank and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA). It is a full time assignment that will be ongoing until December 31, 2017.
The EfD center housed by the School of Economics, University of Nairobi on 27th October held a Water Policy Day to share and receive feedback on ongoing work on water issues in Kenya. Two EfD Kenya projects were presented. David Fuente, Kenan Fellow and PhD student, University of North Carolina, presented preliminary findings from the Increasing Block Tariffs and Subsidy Incidence project.
"This very readable book on Forest Tenure Reform in Asia and Africa looks at different countries’ strategies to use tenure innovations to manage forest resources. An especially interesting contribution is the comparison of China’s privatization of forest rights to the community-based forestry management approach in other developing countries," says Peter Berck, Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Policy, S.J. Hall Professor of Forestry, University of California, Berkeley, USA.
The Environment for Development (EfD) housed by the School of Economics University of Nairobi on Monday 27th October held a Water Policy Day at the Sarova Panafric Hotel Nairobi to share and receive feedback on ongoing work on water issues in Kenya.
New deadline for EfD's 2015 proposal submission is June 1, 2014. All proposals must be presented in the respective EfD Center Workshops before submission.
Who controls the forests in Kenya? Who benefits from conservation? These are some of the questions that EfD-Kenya has been evaluating in 2013.
In a brief interview with UNU-Wider Wisdom Akpalu, Associate Professor of Economics at SUNY-Farmingdale, NY, shares his view on the effectiveness of development knowledge aid and the impact of the “Gothenburg mafia” on Africa. A maybe misleading expression which relates to Wisdom himself and his former PhD colleagues who studied at the Environmental Economics Unit of the Economics Department at Gothenburg University.
EfD-Kenya held its first Annual Workshop on August 7, 2013 at Fairview Hotel in Nairobi. The workshop brought together researchers, policy makers, academia and other stakeholders in the environment sector. The objective of the workshop was to discuss various research outputs generated from the studies being undertaken by the network associates, and to hear new research ideas.
EfD-Kenya fellows Wilfred Nyangena and Geophrey Sikei, were engaged in the review and synthesis of literature on climate change research in the COMESA region and how it has influenced policy.
EFD Kenya holds a one-day meeting on research and policy interaction as part of EfD’s annual cross-country visit to the EfD centres around the world.
On December 12 and 13 the EfD holds a workshop on collaborative water sector research in Kenya. EfD researchers from Kenya, USA, and Sweden will meet in Gothenburg, Sweden to discuss recent reforms in the Kenyan water sector and take stock of the research needs in order to plan for future EfD research in the Kenyan water sector - and beyond.
September 6-11, 2012 EfD-Kenya implemented an IDRC-funded (International Development Research Centre) workshop on Economic Analysis of Adaptation Options to Climate Change.
The EfD organized and offered the first summer course on “Panel Data Econometrics” at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Mekelle University, Ethiopia in July 2012.
EfD Associate Paul Guthiga, Kenya, is one of the authors of an article that will be published in 13 September 2012 issue of Nature. The paper is titled “Averting biodiversity collapse in tropical forest protected areas”. It is a collaborative publication with many authors. Guthiga´s contribution arose from previous work on Kakamega forest in Kenya.
Flower production around Lake Naivasha and its role in attaining inclusive and sustainable growth: EfD Kenya researchers Dr. Wilfred Nyangena and Geophrey Sikei are contributing to the European Report on Development 2011/2012. In a context of increasing scarcity and climate change, they studied effective natural resource management for inclusive and sustainable growth. Their case study is about flower production around the Lake Naivasha basin, where water, energy, and land resources are increasingly interdependent and under considerable environmental pressures.
Flower production around Lake Naivasha and its role in attaining inclusive and sustainable growth: EfD Kenya researchers Dr. Wilfred Nyangena and Geophrey Sikei are contributing to the European Report on Development 2011/2012
Research on energy demand in developing countries is important for many reasons. The existing widespread use of solid energy sources (e.g. fuelwood, dung, charcoal, coal, leaves, twigs) in Sub-Saharan Africa, and in the developing world in general, has a number of environmental implications. Deforestation, disturbance in watersheds, indoor air pollution and loss of biodiversity are some to mention. On the other hand, climbing the “energy ladder” has implications for greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, understanding the pattern of household energy demand and its implications on the environment is crucial to formulate appropriate energy policies that affect household welfare, local environment and climate change.
Climate change is expected to have significant impacts on the agricultural sector in Sub-Saharan African countries. In this regard, adaptation mechanisms to climate change play a paramount role in reducing the impact on agricultural productivity and food security. With this motivation, the EfD-EEU in Gothenburg, hosted a first collaborative research workshop on the theme “adaptation to climate change in African agriculture” in Gothenburg, Sweden, February 9-10, 2012.
Fuel Taxes and the Poor challenges the conventional wisdom that gasoline taxation, an important and much-debated instrument of climate policy, has a disproportionately detrimental effect on poor people.
Press release in connection with EfD Policy Day Arusha, Tanzania, 27 October 2011
A half day workshop was organized by EfD in Washington DC on April 21, 2011. Recent developments in forest management institutions in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania were presented. EfD-Ethiopia coordinator, Dr. Alemu Mekonnen presented a paper on Household Forest Values under Varying Management Regimes in Ethiopia.
The Environment for Development initiative arranged a Forest Tenure Impact Evaluation Workshop on April 21, in connection to the World Bank’s annual conference on land and poverty in Washington D.C. on April 18-20. Recent developments in forest management institutions in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania were reviewed during this workshop, and a potential impact evaluation program for forest tenure reform in East Africa was discussed. The workshop was held on Thursday April 21 and was open for all conference participants.
EfD Kenya notes in its commissioned report for World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) that environmental issues are recognized as important at very high levels of planning in Kenya. Still, the environment-poverty reduction nexus has not received its due attention in terms of policy prioritization, money allocation, political and civil society support, and actual implementation.
EfD Kenya notes in its commissioned report for World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) that environmental issues are recognized as important at very high levels of planning in Kenya. Still, the environment-poverty reduction nexus has not received its due attention in terms of policy prioritization, money allocation, political and civil society support, and actual implementation.
EfD-Kenya actively participated in the preparation of the Kenya State of Environment (SoE) Report. Preparation of the SoE 2010 report was spearheaded by United Nation Environment Programme (UNEP) and National Environment Management Authority (NEMA).
EfD-K underscores the importance of environment in realizing Vision 2030 in the Kenya Economic Report (KER) 2010.