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Publications (92)
Drought is a leading cause of persistent poverty and humanitarian crises among pastoralists in East Africa. In a new book in the UNU-WIDER and Cambridge University Press Elements in Development Economics series, we examine the evolution, evaluations, and growth of the Index Based Livestock Insurance...
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– What Is Missing from National Economic Recovery Plans?
From the book:
COVID-19 and the Informal Economy
Working Paper
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Cross-border traders face a choice between official and unofficial border crossings. The latter allow them to evade taxes, but expose them to other risks, such as bribes, fines, and arrest. We investigate the perceptions of cross-border traders about the risks of trading officially vs unofficially...
Improving tax systems is important for multiple reasons. For Kenya, finding ways to mobilize domestic revenue streams is critical to cutting the vicious cycle of indebtedness that keeps the country tied to external partners. Correct knowledge of the gaps in tax payment helps to identify solutions...
Working Paper
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– The contribution of the UNU-WIDER World Income Inequality Database initiative
Globally, there are several initiatives being undertaken to ensure the availability of information across countries that can be used to analyse the inequality phenomenon in and among countries. The data are easily accessible for use in comparative research on inequality across regions and countries...
Working Paper
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– ACEIR research and the WIID
Work done by the African Centre of Excellence for Inequality Research (ACEIR) has documented the many-faceted nature of inequality in Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa. Conventionally measured inequality ranges from moderate (in Ghana) to extremely high (in South Africa). Trying to tell one coherent...
Working Paper
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Throughout 2021, fiscal stimulus packages were introduced to jump-start the COVID-19 ‘post-pandemic’ economic recovery process. While calls for economic recovery packages that promise to ‘build back better’ have come from many directions, the under-allocation of recovery resources directed at...
Working Paper
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– The sub-Saharan experience
COVID-19 cases were first confirmed in March 2020 in Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa. These countries put in place several stringent measures, including lockdowns, to contain the spread of the virus. Various policies were also rolled out to address the disruption in economic activities, to mitigate...
Working Paper
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– Insights from Peru and Kenya
Illicit gold flows constitute a major development challenge for governments and a social responsibility challenge for the jewellery industry, which accounts for the majority of global gold demand. This paper highlights aspects of gold supply chains that lack transparency and may indicate junctures...
Across Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia, political candidates often attempt to buy the votes of the most socio-economically deprived communities. But new research from Prisca Jöst and Ellen Lust argues that social cohesion in these communities is instrumental in determining the levels of support for...
Working Paper
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– Insights from Kenyan agricultural platforms
Women play a critical yet under-researched role in global digital agri-food value chains, especially in smallholder production, which affects how they are able to economically upgrade (improve crop yields and product quality, and increase product diversification). Research suggests that women’s...
Working Paper
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The savings–growth nexus is widely acknowledged, both in policy and in the literature. But Kenya’s numerous policy initiatives to encourage savings mobilization are yet to yield the expected outcomes. This paper identifies the key drivers of domestic saving in Kenya, exploiting fintech as an...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Social ties, clientelism and the poor’s expectations of future service provision
Part of Journal Special Issue
Clientelist Politics and Development
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– From Harambee to the Constituency Development Fund
Why does clientelism persist? What determines how politicians signal responsiveness to voters and exert effort towards fulfilling campaign promises? This article explores how state capacity, legislative institutional strength, and established ideas about what politicians can do structure the...
Working Paper
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– The role of internal debt
Illicit financial flows directly impact a country’s ability to raise, retain, and mobilize its own resources to finance sustainable development. Against a backdrop of a weak public financial position attributed to capital flight, tax avoidance, and dependence on corporate income taxes, governments...
Working Paper
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We examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Kenya’s foreign trade using quarterly trade data for the period 2019 to the second quarter of 2021. The exploratory analysis shows that growth of Kenya’s merchandise exports remained resilient, largely supported by traditional exports of tea and...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– The case of Kenya
The role of exports in promoting economic growth has been widely acknowledged. This paper analyses the link between exports, imports, and growth performance in Kenya using time series data. Despite trade liberalization and export promotion policies pursued over time, Kenya’s export growth has been...
Working Paper
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– From Harambee to the Constituency Development Fund
Why does clientelism persist? What determines how politicians signal responsiveness or fulfil their campaign promises? Existing works assume that politicians choose the most successful means of winning votes—either through targeted patronage/clientelism or programmatic policies. However, the...
Working Paper
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– Receiving more, expecting less?
Are candidates who hand out clientelistic goods at election time less likely to provide services once they take office? This paper examines the poor’s expectations of future service provision by candidates who hand out money and other goods versus those who do not. We hypothesize that the poor’s...
Background Note
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– Insights from Kenya
In this background note, we examine how different firms and sectors rebound or prevail in crises. We draw on insights from the performance (upgrading potential) of Kenyan horticulture, tea, and leather export firms during two recent, but very different, shocks to the Kenyan economy. The first is the...
Working Paper
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– The cases of Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe
The objective of this research is to assess the extent to which export processing zones in Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe integrate the Sustainable Development Goals in their implementation and operations. We focused on four Sustainable Development Goals—gender equality, decent work...
Working Paper
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– Italy and Kenya compared
COVID-19 causes extremely high mortality among the old. This motivates a comparison of the losses of future lifetime years and future lifetime years of work ensuing from a hypothetical 25,000 excess deaths in Italy, whose affluent population is one of the world’s oldest, with those in Kenya, whose...
Background Note
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– The case of Kenya
The COVID-19 pandemic has now spread to over 180 countries, including several countries in sub-Saharan Africa.1 Kenya reported its first COVID-19 case on 13 March 2020. By 31 March the number of confirmed cases had risen to 59, with over 70 per cent of infections in Nairobi. As at 22 April 2020, the...
Working Paper
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– The case of Kenya
The role of exports in promoting economic growth has been widely acknowledged. This paper analyses the link between exporting and growth performance in Kenya using time series data. Despite trade liberalization and export promotion policies pursued over time, Kenya’s export growth has been sluggish...
Working Paper
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In recent decades, the impact of South African foreign direct investment in Africa has been captured by research and policy. This paper investigates linkages and spillover effects of South African foreign direct investment in Botswana and Kenya. The study uses primary data to investigate qualitative...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Objective To assess compliance with infection prevention and control practices in primary health care in Kenya. Methods We used an observational, patient-tracking tool to assess compliance with infection prevention and control practices by 1680 health-care workers during outpatient interactions with...
– infection prevention and control practices in Kenya
Primum non nocere — first, do no harm. This most basic tenet of medical care is routinely violated in clinics and hospitals around the world today. But the absence of routine data means that when it comes to improving patient safety, we are often in the dark. Available studies frequently rely on...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
Measuring quality of care
Working Paper
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Objective: To analyse factors affecting variations in the observed quality of antenatal and sick-child care in primary-care facilities in seven African countries. Methods: We pooled nationally representative data from service provision assessment surveys of health facilities in Kenya, Malawi...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Objective To develop a novel measure to characterize human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) programme quality at health facilities in Kenya and explore its associations with patient- and facility-level characteristics. Methods We developed a composite indicator to measure quality of HIV care, comprising...
Working Paper
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Literature on social protection in Kenya shows progress in implementation of cash transfers but not the social health insurance scheme. With a dearth of explanation for this contrasting promotion of social protection, this paper examines the role of Kenya’s political settlement and the interests of...
Working Paper
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– The case of the mobile money transfer industry
The mobile money transfer industry has been the most successful information and communications technology-enabled service in Kenya, having recorded an exponential growth relative to its neighbours within the East Africa region. This could be attributed to Kenya’s status as a leading commercial and...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Comparative Evidence From Kenya and Malaysia
Part of Journal Special Issue
Learning to Compete
Working Paper
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– The case of East Africa
In East Africa, there have been numerous concerns over logistics efficiency. Among them, the regional integration of the trucking industry is perceived as a major problem. This paper utilizes a combination of unpublished data surveys and published data (mainly port data) to assess the extent of...
Book Chapter
– Economic growth, labor market dynamics, and prospects for a demographic dividend
From the book:
Africa's Lions
Blog
From 2000-2014, like many other sub-Saharan African countries, Kenya experienced high growth, at an average of 4.37 percent. Unfortunately, the 2007-2008 election-related violence as well as the global financial crisis halted much of Kenya’s economic progress, meaning it has lagged slightly behind...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– African Context and the Case of Kenya
Part of Journal Special Issue
Aid for Gender Equality and Development
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– A systems approach
Part of Journal Special Issue
Prospects for Renewable Energy in Africa
Working Paper
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– Kenya country case study
This paper mainly analyses the drivers of economic growth in Kenya and the linkages to the labour market dynamics, with a focus on population growth, its structure, and the prospects of reaping a demographic dividend. This is in recognition that Kenya, as the ninth largest economy in Africa and the...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Comparing Design and Implementation Errors Across Alternative Mechanisms
Part of Journal Special Issue
Aid, Social Policy and Development
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
The Political Economy of Africa's Emergent Middle Class
– Bad Luck or Bad Policy?
16 December 2014 John Page On 20 November 2014 the United Nations celebrated the 25th Africa Industrialization Day. But perhaps ‘celebrate’ is not exactly the right word. Africa’s experience with industrialization over the past quarter century has actually been disappointing. In 2010, sub-Saharan...
Working Paper
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Three major policy regimes, namely import substitution, market liberalization and export promotion have greatly influenced Kenyan industrialization since independence in 1963. Overall, import substitution strategy was successful in establishing some primary industries but led to reduced domestic...
Working Paper
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– A Long-Term Perspective
This paper seeks to measure and explain changes in incomes, inequality, and poverty in Kenya. It starts from a very long-term perspective covering the last century, but then focuses on a more detailed analysis of the recent period for which data from household surveys are available. We seek to...
Working Paper
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– Evidence from Kenya
Barrington Moore’s famous line ‘no bourgeoisie, no democracy’ is one of the most quoted claims in political science. But has the rise of the African middle class promoted democratic consolidation? This paper uses the case of Kenya to investigate the attitudes and behaviours of the middle class...
Working Paper
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– A Systems Approach
Capacity planners in developing countries frequently use screening curves and other system-independent metrics such as levelized cost of energy to guide investment decisions. This can lead to spurious conclusions when evaluating intermittent power sources such as solar and wind. We use a system...
Working Paper
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– Comparing Design and Implementation Errors Across Alternative Mechanisms
Identifying the poorest for selection into social transfer programmes is a major challenge facing programme implementers. An innovative cash transfer programme in northern Kenya trialed three targeting mechanisms to learn lessons about which approach is most effective at minimizing inclusion and...
Book Chapter
From the book:
Food Price Policy in an Era of Market Instability
Working Paper
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Agriculture is a main contributor to pro-poor growth in Africa, but gender inequalities in the sector hold back agricultural growth and affect household welfare negatively. The sector has been characterized by a lack of gender-disaggregated data and patchy gender-integration in policies and...
Blog
10 December 2013 Tony Addison Our November-December Angle comes amid intense activity on our ReCom—Research and Communication on Foreign Aid—programme, which is drawing to a close. We also have the last of our ReCom results meetings, on the theme ‘Aid for Gender Equality’, taking place in Copenhagen...
Working Paper
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– Two Case Studies : Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo
The paper examines why the efforts to promote gender justice by development aid have not succeeded in dealing with deeply-rooted structural injustices which prevent the realization of social justice and gender equality. The study analyses the implementation of the UNSCR 1325 ‘Women, Peace, and...
Working Paper
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– the Case of Kenya
We investigate allocations of foreign aid by donors to the environment sector in Kenya covering the period 2001-12. Our data are largely obtained from official government and global aid databases complemented with donor interviews. We find that donor funding remained significant with emphasis on...
Blog
22 August 2013 Roger Williamson Given the high growth rates since 2000 and low labour costs, Africa could develop manufacturing industry, agro-processing, and services. But these cost advantages can easily be undermined by factors such as inadequate infrastructure, particularly power, transportation...
Research Brief
In the WIDER Working Paper ‘Decentralized Service Delivery in Nairobi and Mombasa: Policies, politics and inter-governmental relations’ Winnie V. Mitullah assesses the major obstacles to providing critical services, such as solid waste management and water, in Nairobi and Mombasa. She argues that...
Blog
Tony Addison This month saw UNU-WIDER in Stockholm for the ReCom results meeting on ‘aid and the social sectors’, which took place at Sida on 13 March. We had a very good turnout for the meeting, with as many people joining us onsite and online for the video cast. You can see the videos and the...
Working Paper
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– the Case of Kenya
This paper evaluates Kenya’s food price crisis over 2002–11 using a political economy approach. Kenya’s food prices have been high and volatile relative to world food prices. Moreover, domestic food markets are highly integrated while about 30 per cent of the changes in world market prices are...
Blog
– The Second Edition of ‘From Poverty to Power’
Duncan Green Updating a book on contemporary events can be unnerving. In the intervening years, events and new thinking combine to expose the weaknesses of any text. Even more so with a book like ‘From Poverty to Power: How Active Citizens and Effective States Can Change the World’ (henceforward...
Working Paper
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In many African countries, decentralization has long been viewed as a means for improving local service delivery. Yet, despite various decentralization initiatives, poor service delivery continues to be problematic in two of Kenya’s largest cities, Nairobi and Mombasa. Despite various governance...
Blog
Luc Christiaensen and Lorraine Telfer-Taivainen If a person suddenly becomes poor, for example, due to an unexpected death or illness in the family, they will have a rather different experience and understanding of poverty than someone who has been impoverished almost their entire life. Importantly...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– A CGE Analysis for Kenya
Like many African countries, Kenya is vulnerable to avian flu given its position along migratory bird routes and proximity to other high risk countries. This raises concern about the effect of an outbreak on rural livelihoods. We use a dynamic computable general equilibrium model of Kenya to...
Book Chapter
From the book:
Health Inequality and Development
Working Paper
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Drawing on insights from Latin America, this paper examines the factors that contributed to the use of populist strategies by political parties during recent presidential elections in Kenya, South Africa, and Zambia. Specifically, the paper argues that the nature of party competition in Africa...
Blog
Luc Christiaensen and Lionel Demery Escalating food prices in 2007-2008, climate change and land grabbing have woken the world up to the extraordinary challenge of feeding 9 billion people by 2050. Indeed, following several world summits, policymakers are now convinced of the need for a significant...
Working Paper
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Micro- and small-scale enterprises (MSEs) have become important players in the Kenyan economy, but at the same time they continue to face constraints that limit their development. Lack of access to financial services is one of the main constraints, and a number of factors have been identified to...
Working Paper
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This paper focuses on the determinants of infant and child mortality in Kenya. It specifically examines how infant and child mortality is related to the household’s environmental and socio-economic characteristics, such as mother’s education, source of drinking water, sanitation facility, type of...
Working Paper
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– Mauritania, Kenya and Mozambique Compared
This paper conceptualises foreign aid as a geopolitical form of rent in order to help distinguish the conditions under which aid is detrimental to sustained economic recovery from those where it is beneficial. Foreign aid shares with natural resource rent and contrived (i.e., government monopoly)...
Working Paper
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Using multinomial logit we analyze factors that influence the choice of mechanization technologies in Nyanza Province. The results show that farmers are aware of the attributes of the mechanization technologies, and that animal traction is the most commonly used. Gender, formal and informal training...
Working Paper
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In evaluating tax reform in the developing countries, one first needs to determine what is the unique role of the tax system in each particular country. One of the key reasons for undertaking tax reforms in Kenya was to address issues of inequality and to create a sustainable tax system that could...
Book Chapter
From the book:
Reforming Africa's Institutions
Working Paper
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This paper assesses the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and their impact on the economic performance of small- and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) of three East African countries: Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Findings of the paper suggest that the diffusion of ICT among East...
Working Paper
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– The Case of Kenya
This study critically reviews the education sector in Kenya and the challenges facing the sector in achieving universal primary schooling. The study argues that the introduction of cost-sharing system in Kenya has resulted in high dropout and repetition rates, low transition and completion rates...
Working Paper
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Kenya’s external debt has continued to swell over the years, and despite the country meeting its debt commitment through regular servicing, this has been done at the expense of key social services such as health, education, water and sanitation. Although good health is a pre-requisite to...
Working Paper
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– The Kenya Case
The Kenyan economy had a growth of –0.3 per cent in the year 2001, the lowest growth in the post-independence era. The dismal growth performance coincided with the period when the government was involved in grassroot consultations with civil society and other stakeholders, to find out the causes of...
– Experience and Issues
The volume contains original essays by authors who have worked together to derive lessons for African export prospects from the experiences of some of the more successful developing countries in East Asia and Latin America. They present up-to-date data and analysis on non-traditional exporting...
Working Paper
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– An Empirical Assessment
A group of low-income countries classified as HIPCs have continued to experience difficulties in managing and servicing their huge stocks of external debt. Most of these countries including Kenya are in Sub-Saharan Africa. The relatively high level of Kenya’s external indebtedness and rising debt...
Working Paper
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Kenya’s civil service expanded rapidly after independence, becoming by far the largest in East Africa. Following economic decline since the 1980s, however, it became difficult for the government to sustain a large and inefficient public sector. To raise efficiency, extensive civil service reforms...
Book Chapter
From the book:
Non-Traditional Export Promotion in Africa
Journal Article
– The Impact of Financial Liberalization on Access to Rural Credit in Four African Countries
Part of Journal Special Issue
Impact of the Liberalization of the Exchange Rate and Financial Markets in Sub-Saharan Africa
Journal Article
– The Financial and Foreign Exchange Markets
Part of Journal Special Issue
Impact of the Liberalization of the Exchange Rate and Financial Markets in Sub-Saharan Africa
This special issue of the Journal of International Development presents the results of a study initiated two years ago by UNU/WIDER on `The impact of the liberalization of the exchange rate and financial markets in sub-Saharan Africa'. The project has benefited from the contributions of African and...
Working Paper
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– Food Marketing Policies in Eastern Africa
Food marketing is one of the fields where structural adjustment has been implemented throughout the Sub-Saharan Africa. This study analyses the impact of reform on the functioning and efficiency of food marketing. It is based on a comparative analysis of three maize-producing countries, namely...
Book Chapter
From the book:
The Political Economy of Hunger
Working Paper
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– Kenya
Although Kenya avoided the disastrous plunge in real GNP that many other African countries suffered in the first half of the 1980s, standards of living of nearly all sectors of the population fell because economic growth slowed to less than half of what it had been in the previous decade while...
Displaying 92 of 92 results