Kenya

When is the rigorous impact evaluation of development projects a luxury, and when a necessity? This Paper studies one high-profile case: the Millennium Villages Project... Show More + (MVP), an experimental and intensive package intervention to spark sustained local economic development in rural Africa. it illustrates the benefits of rigorous impact evaluation in this setting by showing that estimates of the project's effects depend heavily on the evaluation method. Comparing trends at the MVP intervention sites in Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria to trends in the surrounding areas yields much more modest estimates of the project's effects than the before-versus-after comparisons published thus far by the MVP. Neither approach constitutes a rigorous impact evaluation of the MVP, which is impossible to perform due to weaknesses in the evaluation design of the project's initial phase. These weaknesses include the subjective choice of intervention sites, the subjective choice of comparison sites, the lack of baseline data on comparison sites, the small sample size, and the short time horizon. The authors describe how the next wave of the intervention could be designed to allow proper evaluation of the MVP's impact at little additional cost. Show Less -

This assessment of poverty and inequality comes at an important juncture for Kenya. The December 2007 elections and subsequent pronouncements of the newly formed Grand... Show More + Coalition have underlined the salience of these issues to ordinary Kenyans, and for policy makers. The violence in early 2008 highlighted the importance of addressing poverty and inequality as major goals in their own right, but also for instrumental reasons, as major goals in their own right, the persistent inequalities spark conflict, which is welfare reducing, and this conflict in turn will harm prospects for growth. The onset of the global credit crunch has also shown how poverty and public service delivery related vulnerabilities could be exacerbated by external shocks. Cumulatively, these factors underline the value of appropriate diagnostics about the patterns of poverty and inequality in informing public debates, strategies and actions to overcome exclusion from the benefits of growth and development in Kenya as well as designing policies to minimize the impact of the current global crisis. Show Less -

Most analyses of the determinants of HIV infection are performed at the individual level. The recent Demographic and Health Surveys which include results from HIV tests... Show More + allow studying HIV infection at the level of the cohabiting couple. The paper exploits this feature of the data for Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, and Tanzania. The analysis yields two surprising findings about the dynamics of the HIV/AIDS epidemic which have important implications for policy. First, at least two-thirds of the infected couples are discordant couples, that is, couples where only one of the two partners is infected. This implies that there is scope for prevention efforts among couples. Second, between 30 and 40 percent of the infected couples are couples where the female partner only is infected. This is at odds with levels of self-reported marital infidelity by females and with the common perception that unfaithful males are the main link between high risk groups and the general population. This study investigates and confirms the robustness of these findings. For example, even among couples where the woman has been in only one union for 10 years or more, the fraction of couples where only the female partner is infected remains high. These results suggest that extramarital sexual activity among cohabiting women, whatever its causes, is a substantial source of vulnerability to HIV that should be, as much as male infidelity, targeted by prevention efforts. Moreover, this paper uncovers several inconsistencies between the sexual behaviors reported by male and female partners, suggesting that as much as possible, prevention policies should rely on evidence including objectively measured HIV status. Show Less -

This report discusses the results of a study designed to fill gaps in knowledge about slums in Nairobi. Drawing on detailed surveys of households residing in slums in... Show More + Nairobi, this study aims to develop a demographic, economic and infrastructure profile of slum settlements in these two cities. Analytically, it focuses on the following questions: how poor and inadequately served are slum dwellers in Nairobi? What are the factors correlated with poverty among slum households in the city? The report finds: First, the incidence of economic poverty is very high in Nairobi's slums and it is accompanied by horrible living conditions and other forms of non-economic poverty. Second, Nairobi's slums provide low-quality but high-cost shelter. Third, somewhat encouragingly, there is heterogeneity among Nairobi's slums dwellers, their living conditions, and their economic welfare. Fourth, a systematic comparison between poor and non-poor households reveals five types of non-monetary factors that are strongly correlated with poverty in the slums: (1) household demographics (size and gender and age composition); (2) education; (3) ownership of a micro-enterprise; (4) unemployment in the household; and (5) infrastructure access, in particular electricity and water supply. Given their strong correlation with poverty, these five factors can and should serves as a basis-a starting point-for the design of any poverty alleviation efforts in the slums. Fifth, slum dwellers' own development priorities -- a first proxy for "demand"-- resonate strongly with the technical analyses. Sixth, although upgrading efforts in the slums have been piece-meal and modest thus far, they do appear to have created some benefits. The paper is structured as follows. Section two outlines the research methodology and the data. Section three estimates poverty incidence in the slums and identifies factors correlated with poverty. Sections four through nine present both descriptive data and analyses on each of the following topics: demographcs, economic base, housing, previous residence of "emigrants," infrastructure, and education. Section 10 summarizes the development priorities of slum dwellers and Section 11 presents conclusions and policy implications. Show Less -

Following the endorsement of the Millennium Development Goals, there is an increasing demand for methods to track poverty regularly. This paper develops an economically... Show More + intuitive and inexpensive methodology to do so in the absence of regular, comparable data on household consumption. The minimum data requirements for the methodology are the availability of a household budget survey and a series of surveys with a comparable set of asset data also contained in the budget survey. The methodology is illustrated using a series of Demographic Health Surveys from Kenya. Show Less -

The identification of agricultural microfinance as a significant remaining challenge to financial sectors that serve the majority of the poor spurred CGAP to undertake... Show More + an analysis of current practices. The Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) in 2002 began desk research, consultant site visits, and stakeholder consultations to identify promising agricultural lending operations. Case studies were selected and are outlined here as representative examples that merit dissemination. These case studies present promising approaches to the sustainable provision of financial services to poor rural households reliant on agriculture. The five institutions or projects highlighted in the studies are: Bai Tushum Financial Foundation (Bai Tushum), Kyrgyzstan; Caja Los Andes, Bolivia ; Confinanza, Peru ; Cooperative League of the USA (CLUSA), Mozambique; and Equity Bank, Limited (Equity), Kenya. Each case study begins with basic information about the institution's history and goes on to present a set of key challenges and responses related to agricultural or rural finance operations. A brief institutional assessment of the financial provider is then followed by information on donor and investor support, plus a section on lessons learned. Show Less -

The first objective of this study was to provide an accurate understanding of the organization of logistics from the farmer to the main centers in two districts, Kisumu... Show More + and Nyandarua; that is the sequence of the supply chain and participants. This sequence has implications on the revenues and income levels of the farmer and the prices of the final product, given the status of infrastructure. The second objective was to reconstitute a value chain that allocates costs to various steps in the logistical sequence as specified in the Terms of Reference (TOR). The difficulty in this exercise is that most participants have no formal accounting with a detailed breakdown of operational costs. There costs have to be estimated indirectly, based on figures that participants can provide on earnings and payments. Also, some of the participants in the value chain were quite reluctant to talk to the author for a number of reasons, one being fear, that is fear that their livelihood would be jeopardized, that was mainly the middlemen and small traders in the market places. The policy implication for a country such as Kenya whose agricultural sector is dominated by small holders is that they should invest in rural road infrastructure improvements. However, the government is in deep fiscal crisis and might not afford the high cost of major rural infrastructure investments. Show Less -

Considerations of risk and vulnerability are key to understanding the dynamics of poverty. This study conceives vulnerability as expected poverty and illustrates a methodology... Show More + to empirically assess household vulnerability using pseudo panel data derived from repeated cross sections augmented with historical information on shocks. Application of the methodology to data from rural Kenya shows that in 1994 rural households faced on average a 40 percent chance of becoming poor in the future. Households in arid areas that experience large rainfall volatility appear more vulnerable than those in non-arid areas, where malaria emerges as a key risk factor. Idiosyncratic shocks also cause non-negligible consumption volatility. Possession of cattle and sheep/goats appears ineffective in protecting consumption against covariant shocks, though sheep/goat help reduce the effect of idiosyncratic shocks, especially in arid zones. Of the policy instruments simulated, interventions directed at reducing the incidence of malaria, promoting adult literacy, and improving market accessibility hold most promise to reduce vulnerability. Show Less -

Health and sanitation needs in the countries reviewed, and the region as a whole are high. Diarrhoeal diseases and others related to poor sanitation, such as malaria,... Show More + skin and eye infections, are prevalent. Concurrently, infant and maternal mortality rates are also high. Therefore, improved water and sanitation are matters of priority concern to most governments in the region. The report reviews the participatory methods introduced in the early 1980s, currently widely used in the countries reviewed. Conceptually well understood, with a noticeable change of attitude at the professional level (self analysis, improved communication, and technical staff), including increased use of demand-responsiveness at the institutional level, participatory methods have also increased hygiene-enabling facilities, and improved water transportation, and storage. Key lessons in this report address the success factors, country specific highlights, while regional activities are proposed, outlining the prevailing challenges, and the way forward. Show Less -

This Country Economic Memorandum (CEM) - the first since 1995 - is a contribution to the government's economic recovery strategy, and to its Poverty Reduction Strategy... Show More + Paper (PRSP), being finalized. It examines Kenya's economic performance during the past decade, and identifies the structural weaknesses that have contributed to the decline in productivity, and the competitiveness of the economy during this period. It also recommends policy, and institutional reforms to revitalize economic growth, and to reduce poverty. The message from the CEM is a sober one: increased poverty is the legacy from almost two decades of slow growth; and, the burden of disease, particularly malaria and HIV/AIDS will constrain growth in the years to come. However, given the improved economic policy environment, the potential for economic growth is significantly better than the poor performance in the 1990s would indicate. But even in our high-case scenario Kenya is unlikely to reach the Millennium Development Goal of cutting in half by 2015 the proportion of Kenyans living in poverty in 1990. Reducing poverty will remain a tremendous challenge. The CEM is organized into six chapters. Chapter 1 reviews recent economic developments, and Kenya's integration with the world economy. Chapter 2 discusses trends in poverty, and focuses on the long term economic factors that affect productivity, and institutional effectiveness. Chapters 3-5 provide detailed analyses of the agricultural, manufacturing, and services sectors, identifying specific cross-sectoral issues, and, recommending policy, and institutional reforms to promote broad-based economic growth. Finally, chapter 6 discusses the investment climate, and its relationship to private sector investment. Show Less -