Rosemary Atieno

Household Welfare, Investment in Soil and Water Conservation and Tenure Security: Evidence from Kenya

In Kenya, conservation and sustainable utilization of the environment and natural resources form an integral part of national planning and poverty reduction efforts. However, weak environmental management practices are a major impediment to agricultural productivity growth. This study was motivated by the paucity of literature on the poverty-environment nexus in Kenya, since poverty, agricultural stagnation and environmental degradation are issues of policy interest in the country’s development strategy. The paper builds on the few existing studies from Kenya and explores the impact of household, farm and village characteristics as well as the development domain dimensions on household welfare and investment in soil and water conservation. The results show that strengthening the tenure security improves household welfare. Further, soil quality, topography and investments in soil and water conservation affect household welfare. Agroecological potential, which is related to environmental conservation, is also a key correlate of poverty. Results for investment in water and soil conservation confirm the importance of tenure security in determining adoption and also the intensity of SWC investments. We also find that household assets, farm characteristics, presence of village institutions and development domain dimensions are important determinants of adoption and intensity of soil and water conservation investments. The results for both poverty and investment in soil and water conservation suggest the existence of a strong poverty-environment link in our sample. The results also suggest that rural poverty can be alleviated by policies that improve environmental conservation and strengthen land tenure security. The study also underscores the importance of village institutions in both investment adoption of soil and water conservation and in improving household welfare.

Lifelong learning to empowerment: beyond formal education

Abstract This paper discusses the relevance of lifelong learning vis-à-vis the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and stresses the need for an approach blending formal education, non-formal and informal learning. The role of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) in moving beyond formal education and the importance of integrating pedagogy, andragogy and heutagogy in lifelong learning are raised as key factors in ensuring that education and learning can generate positive externalities and impact livelihoods. Through a case study in the agricultural sector, this paper analyses the role of lifelong learning in empowering smallholders of backyard poultry enterprises in Kenya and argues that lifelong learning needs to be placed in appropriate social and economic contexts to generate outcomes and impacts such as empowerment.

The Role of Social Policy in Development: Health, Water and Sanitation in East Africa

Social policy is defined as collective interventions directly affecting transformation in social welfare, social institutions and social relations (Mkandawire 2001). In many sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries the number of people living below the poverty line has increased over the last decade, while human development for many countries in the region has declined. In the East African region (Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania) the proportion of those living on less than US

Formal and Informal Institutions

1 a day was more than half except in Uganda (World Bank 2001b). Thus the majority of the population in these countries are poor with low levels of access to basic health care, safe water sources and sanitation. According to the Human Development Report 2003, all three of the East African countries fall within the low human development category (Figure 6.1). While Uganda and Tanzania have been on the low human development category, Uganda’s human development index (HDI) has been rising, from 0.409 in 1998 to 0.489 in 2001, Tanzania’s HDI on the other hand shows a declining HDI. Although Kenya was within the medium human development category, this has since declined to 0.489 by 2001, which is in the low human development category (UNDP 2003).