Suchergebnisse

This paper examines the response of herders to increased shortage and degradation of land in an arid and semi-arid land setting in Kenya, under changing property right regimes using both survey and secondary data. We argue that the responses adopted are livelihood strategies to improve herder's welfare. We explore the determinants of three different strategies: crop cultivation, investment in land improvements, and migration with livestock. We employ the probit regression framework to explain each strategy. The main findings of the study are that private property rights, educational attainment, and availability of water are major determinants of the three strategies. We recommend policies that favour privatization of existing common property resources, improve education levels, and increase supply of water in the district.

This study investigates the relationship between property rights, resource degradation, and productivity among herders in semi-arid regions of Kenya using survey data. Binary and conditional logit models are used to explain migration, while ordinary least squares and fixed effects models are used to explain productivity. The main findings of the study are that private property right regimes discourage migration with livestock, while private property right regimes and migration increase productivity. The study recommends that if privatization is not feasible, then the existing common rights system should be strengthened through promotion of collective action and limiting of group sizes.

Based on original research in Africa and South America, this book employs a multidimensional poverty indicator approach to identify inequalities in child welfare, analyze their sources, and evaluate the impacts of policy responses to those inequalities

Based on original research in Africa and South America, this book employs a multidimensional poverty indicator approach to identify inequalities in child welfare, analyze their sources, and evaluate the impacts of policy responses to those inequalities.

AbstractWe used two-wave panel data obtained from avocado growers in Murang'a County in Kenya to examine, through the perspective of gender, the dynamics of farmers' participation in avocado production and marketing organizations (PMOs), and test whether understanding group dynamics is important for analyzing contract farming. Using a multinomial logit (MNL) model, we identify the characteristics of men and women participating in PMOs categorized as early adopters, dis-adopters, late adopters, and non-adopters. We focus on dis-adopters and late adopters because these categories are most often ignored in the literature. Moreover, without considering the dynamics, we verify the influencing factors of PMOs by estimating a random-effects logit model that controls for unobserved heterogeneity across households. Furthermore, we estimate a sequential-choice model to test whether the process of selection into group membership affects the process of selection into contracting. Our results reveal heterogeneity with regard to household, farm, and resource characteristics across categories of farmers and between gender groups. Besides, the results reveal that group and contracting dynamics are related, and ignoring the former leads to biased estimates of the determinants of contracting dynamics. Policy efforts should focus on supporting women farmers to enhance their participation in PMOs, which ultimately affects contracting. Improving access to high-yielding avocado varieties and building capacity in orchard management would enhance women's decision-making including group participation, contracting, and marketing. Low-cost agricultural credit may also improve women's ownership of improved avocado trees and hence their participation in high-value markets.

Previous child health evidence in Kenya has been based on uni-dimensional poverty analysis. Assessing the multiple aspects of child well-being can help, however, reveal complexities and ambiguities in the distribution of child well-being. This paper analyses multidimensional aspects of child poverty and well-being. Stochastic dominance approaches are used to contrast uni-dimensional and multidimensional poverty over health and assets. The results show that children with the lowest probability of survival are from households with the lowest level of assets, and that poverty assessments for child survival and assets are robust to the choice of poverty lines and to measures of well-being. The results suggest that analyzing poverty and well-being in a multidimensional context can generate a relatively rich understanding of both absolute and relative deprivation, especially where regional disparities are important. Provision of basic health care services and social protection schemes could help improve the multidimensional distribution of well-being for Kenya's children.