Even the Rich go Hungry. Food Insecurity in the Highlands of Mt. Kenya

Submitted by Jane Nyawira Maina on
EfD Authors:

Food insecurity is prevalent in most of the developing countries including Kenya. The design and implementation of sustainable strategies in addressing food insecurity requires an in depth understanding of its covariates. As a result, this paper estimated covariates of perceived of food insecurity among households in the slopes of Mt. Kenya, an area perceived to be food secure. In order to achieve this objective, proportionate stratified sampling method was used to select sample in Ngariama location, Kirinyaga and simple random sampling was utilized to identify individual households.

Agriculture

Health Economics: Tools to Measure and Maximize Programme Impact

Submitted by Jane Nyawira Maina on
EfD Authors:

Kahn, Mwai, Kazi, and Marseille explain how economics brings together estimates of disease burden and the costs needed to reduce that burden so that policymakers can choose which intervention strategies will maximize health gains with available resources. The authors introduce and illustrate key health economics methods, including econometrics, cost-benefit analysis, micro-costing, behavioural economics, work force projections, financing, and discrete choice experimentation.

Health

Tracking Health Resources Using National Health Accounts

Submitted by Jane Nyawira Maina on
EfD Authors:

Maina and Mwai describe the policy utility of National Health Accounts (NHA) tool for tracking health spending especially for countries aiming to achieve Universal Health Coverage. They trace the history of health resource tracking and the introduction of NHA based on the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development’s System of Health Accounts methodology. They describe data collection for and preparation of NHA which disaggregate expenditures by four dimensions: sources of financing, financing agents, types of health-care providers and types of health-care functions.

Health

Economic and public health impact of decentralized HIV viral load testing: A modelling study in Kenya

Submitted by Jane Nyawira Maina on
EfD Authors:

Kenya has the world’s 4th largest HIV burden. Various strategies to control the epidemic have been implemented, including the implementation of viral load (VL) testing to monitor HIV patients on ARVs. Like many resource limited settings, Kenya’s healthcare system faces serious challenges in effectively providing quality health services to its population.

Health

Does Awareness Influence Choice of Waste Disposal Methods? A Case of Migori Town, Kenya

Submitted by Jane Nyawira Maina on
EfD Authors:

Rapid economic growth, urbanization and population increase have fueled the production of large amounts of waste to the environment. Even so, the management of such waste has become a huge problem in many towns in developing nations. This has also led to the emergence of different methods of dumping waste such as; dumping in the dustbins, by the roadside, burying and even burning. This paper sought to give insights and inform policy on waste disposal methods and the level of awareness on proper garbage disposal practices. The research was carried out in Migori County in Kenya.

Waste

Complementarity of inorganic fertilizers and improved maize varieties and farmer efficiency in maize production in Kenya

Submitted by Jane Nyawira Maina on
EfD Authors:

This study contributes to the literature and policy on the impact of partial and package adoption of inorganic fertilizers and improved maize varieties on yields among smallholder households in Kenya. We use a blend of the quasi-experimental difference-in-differences approach and propensity score matching to control for both time-variant and time-invariant unobservable household heterogeneity. Our findings show that inorganic fertilizers and improved maize varieties significantly improve yields when adopted as a package rather than as individual elements.

Agriculture

Environmental efficiency of small-scale tea processors in Kenya: an inverse data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach

Submitted by Jane Nyawira Maina on
EfD Authors:

Vision 2030, Kenya’s development blueprint for the period 2008–2030, envisions transforming the country into middle-income status where citizens enjoy a high quality of life. The blueprint has three pillars: economic, political and social. The thread that binds the three pillars is the natural environment, which supplies both renewable and non-renewable resources. Unfortunately, development in the other sectors may easily compromise the conditions of the natural environment and put the supply of clean water, food and fiber in jeopardy.

Agriculture

Adoption of improved amaranth varieties and good agricultural practices in East Africa

Submitted by Jane Nyawira Maina on
EfD Authors:

This study quantifies the adoption of improved amaranth varieties in Kenya and Tanzania, and the extent to which these result from international vegetable breeding research conducted by the World Vegetable Center (WorldVeg) and partners. The study used expert elicitation and a questionnaire survey among vegetable seed producers. Nine expert panels were conducted involving 123 local experts. The results show that improved amaranth varieties were planted on 51% of the planted area in Kenya and 70% in Tanzania.

Agriculture

The design and evaluation of water tariffs: A systematic review

Submitted by Jane Nyawira Maina on
EfD Authors:

Across the globe, many low- and middle-income countries are investing in their first generation of piped water and sanitation infrastructure. At the same time, the water and sanitation infrastructure in many industrialized countries is reaching, or has reached, the end of its useful life. Governments will need to mobilize substantial resources to finance this global water and sanitation infrastructure transition and user charges (tariffs) will play an integral role in supporting these efforts.

Water

Drought preparedness and livestock management strategies by pastoralists in semi-arid lands: Laikipia North, Kenya

Submitted by Jane Nyawira Maina on
EfD Authors:

Drought is a major threat to people's food security and livelihoods in arid and semi-arid lands in drought-prone developing countries. The traditional responses to drought management have been largely reactive. The purpose of this study is to investigate the determinants of the choice behind the various livestock management of pastoralists in Laikipia North, Kenya, as a proxy for understanding their preparedness to cope with future droughts.

Agriculture