Browsing by Subject "Kenya"

Now showing 1 - 10 of 10
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Constructing Empowerment Among Youth in Nairobi, Kenya
    (2016-06) Nikoi, Acacia
    This dissertation examines how youth empowerment is conceptualized and experienced by youth in Nairobi, Kenya. The study is based on a four-year longitudinal study of youth who participated in a non-formal, vocational training program. The findings demonstrate the complex ways youth seek, engage, and enact empowerment in their lives and suggest that youth conceptualizations of empowerment are more complex than the discourse that surrounds youth empowerment efforts heralded through vocational or entrepreneurial training. Based on the findings of this study I propose a multidimensional model of empowerment that is grounded in youth’s lived experiences and constructions of the empowerment process. These dimensions - marketable skills and knowledge, personal development, aspirations, and undugu - reflect the economic, social, and cultural settings in which youth live. Through an examination of these four dimensions, I explore the role of empowerment as a catalyst as youth strive to move from youth- to adulthood.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Eco-epidemiology of tuberculosis in Maasai Mara Kenya: Conceptualizing sociocultural practices for One Health
    (2021-06) Paul, George
    The control of tuberculosis has proven an ongoing challenge for public health. For pastoralists, those defined by their fundamental cultural relationship with livestock and migration in search of pasture and water, the complexity of tuberculosis control intersects with social and cultural practices that should be considered when designing interventions not as binary attributes of the community, but as a continuum within which the community lives and operates. The goal of the work contained within this thesis is to characterize Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex species (MTBC) in a high-exposure human-animal interface; explore the relevance of social and cultural factors; and evaluate the potential role of livestock movement in the transmission and control of zoonotic tuberculosis in the Mara ecosystem. In this dissertation, I document the co-circulation of multiple MTBC species in this ecosystem, with zoonotic tuberculosis substantially contributing to the overall burden, especially in villages adjacent to the Maasai Mara National Reserve, a protected wildlife area. Further, this work demonstrates that livestock movements not only mediate connectivity between villages within this ecosystem, but also interact with other factors to shape household tuberculosis patterns. Specifically, consumption of raw animal products, and movement of livestock for grazing or trade influence household tuberculosis occurrence, and reinforce the importance of zoonotic tuberculosis. Using data on livestock movement, this study demonstrates that dry season grazing patterns are important for enhancing the embeddedness of households’ in their community social networks, with villages adjacent to the Maasai Mara National Reserve as the most common destination for grazing. Overall, the work presented here reinforce the complexity of this issue within this ecosystem, and demonstrates that network-based control measures aimed at highly connected villages, have the potential to enhance the proactive development of targeted disease control programs as traditional and/or narrowly focused approaches for tuberculosis control are unlikely to work. Thus, in accordance with the current global wave of thinking, One Health approaches are also necessary and even required in this system. However, the operationalization of One Health approaches need to be culturally appropriate and tailored specifically to the characteristics of a locality and contextualized to its practices and structures.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    A framework for the evaluation of strategies to reduce risk of foot and mouth disease transmission associated with the trade of beef from East African cattle systems: a progressive and participatory approach
    (2021-09) Adamchick, Julie
    granularity needed in places that tend to have diverse and informal value chains, and b) tapping into unwritten local knowledge / subject matter expertise in a way that generated credible information in a format that can be used for quantitative analysis. The dual training-research activity was also a beneficial experience for participants to model and analyze a problem and system from their professional work. The second aim was to estimate the probability (risk) of FMD at slaughter under current conditions -- the baseline risk. This required quantifying input values and distributions for the variables identified in aim one and translating the conceptual relationships into a probabilistic mathematical model. The risk estimates and sensitivity analyses provided insight about influential factors that could be leveraged to lower the probability of FMD among beef cattle at slaughter from select populations. The third and final aim was to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of possible interventions that could reduce risk in specific value chains. Scenarios were generated using the insights from aim two and compared based on estimated costs and level of risk expected to achieve. This provided insight about specific steps that could be taken as well as a more general gradient of what scale of risk reduction might be expected from a given investment. This information can be combined with information about benefits, limitations, and tradeoffs to support decisions about investments related to FMD control and ambitions for international trade. The output and process of this work provide useful contributions to improve decision-making regarding investments for animal health and trade in regions with endemic trade-sensitive diseases. In Kenya, a feedlot-focused, abattoir-partnered approach may reach the lowest achievable risk. Specific opportunities need to be evaluated in terms of the capacity of necessary stakeholders, cost of sanitary and traceability investments, costs of production, and competitiveness of the resulting product. In both Kenya and Uganda, regionally-focused investments that combined livestock identification and traceability systems with vaccination among willing producers in partnership with an ambitious export abattoir improve FMD control and animal health while reducing risk in the product produced and taking steps toward foundational traceability and disease control capacity. The framework of incremental progress with a focus on risk of the final commodity complements the Progressive Control Pathway for FMD, providing a way to benchmark slow and steady forward motion, and should be used to evaluate disease control and SPS interventions that intend to achieve market access. Participatory approaches that embed data collection for decision analysis into training opportunities for local professionals are a rich way to improve the quality of data and analysis while also building capacity of participants to appreciate the complexity of systems in which they work and the value of analytical approaches to decision-making. Key findings from each chapter: • Aim 1 (chapter 3): o Risk processes differ between management systems, with an especially clear delineation in Kenya between agro-pastoral/pastoral and ranching/feedlot system groups-- highlighting the important interactions between management factors and health or risk dynamics. o FMD infection and sale for slaughter are not always independent events for cattle in Kenya and Uganda, suggesting it would be judicious to characterize the relationship between sale and disease of cattle in the population of study when examining the movement or sale of animals in endemic environments. o The motivations and actions of value chain actors influence the ultimate risk level in a product, demonstrated through the need to include a distinct event for whether or not a disease event is reported after a positive diagnosis. • Aim 2 (chapter 4): o The overall risk of FMD infection at slaughter was substantially lower for cattle originating from Kenyan feedlots and ranches compared to the other six systems evaluated. o In Uganda, semi-intensive and ranching systems showed the potential to reach similarly low risk levels if able to severely limit the exposure to new infections after leaving the herd. o Reduction or elimination of commingling before slaughter was the most effective intervention to reduce risk of infection at slaughter for most systems. o For Kenyan ranches, the detection and removal of infected animals was identified as a potentially important point for intervention. • Aim 3 (chapter 5): o Preventive mass vaccination was the least cost-effective strategy evaluated, even for a relatively small region. It would require a relatively high investment for not the best return with many obstacles on the path, and may not be an advisable strategy especially for the purpose of targeting export opportunities. o Strategies that involved voluntary rather than compulsory participation had more favorable cost-effectiveness ratios. o The greatest reduction in risk at the lowest cost was obtained through a voluntary program that combined a livestock ID and traceability system with biannual preventive vaccination and a premium price at slaughter for participants.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Higher education and peacebuilding: A comparative case study of peace and conflict studies programs in Kenyan universities
    (2019-08) Sikenyi, Maurice
    This study aimed to understand the role of higher education and peacebuilding in Kenya. In particular, the study explored how university administrators, faculty, students and national officials understand peace, and how university-level peace and conflict studies programs were designed and implemented for peacebuilding in Kenya. The study entailed a year-long period of fieldwork that focused on two Kenyan universities, Amani University and Umoja University , and their PCS programs. It was structured as a comparative case study utilizing semi-structured interviewing, document review and participant observations. The primary findings of this study are as follows: First, participants viewed higher education institutions (universities) as critical actors in the consolidation of peace, and peace and conflict studies (PCS) programs as critical for peacebuilding. However, participants also viewed universities as enablers of ethnic divisions and a culture of violence, a problematic role which participants felt needed to be addressed in order to generate meaningful efforts of peacebuilding through higher education. Secondly, participants understood peace as an outcome of the practice of uwazi and undugu, sustainable development, freedom from corruption, ethnic inclusivity and cohesiveness, absence of physical violence, good leadership and dialogue and reconciliation. I argue that these participants’ constructions of peace, reflected their tacit knowledge, aspirations and lived experiences of conflict and peace that were particular to Kenya and therefore constituted a peace knowledge. Thirdly, faculty utilized peace knowledge and critical pedagogy to design PCS curricula and drew on local knowledge and resources to develop students’ knowledge, skills and agency for peace and justice. Additionally, students’ perspectives revealed transformative experiences in PCS programs. These formations of new perspectives and awareness of peace illustrate the transformative element of a university learning experience and confirmed the critical role of university actors and programs in shaping actions and values for peace and sustainability. This study contributes to understandings of peace and the role of education in peacebuilding. It reveals the relational nature of peace, particularly the role of individual lived experiences as well as context-level factors in shaping perspectives on peace and conflict which differ from one region to another. Subsequently, findings of this research illustrate limitations and promises of higher education institutions (HEIs) as avenues for peacebuilding. In Kenya, HEIs were constrained by competing demands for institutional survival amidst diminishing state financing and the high demand for university level-education and certifications. Similarly, broader social and historical issues within universities and beyond inhibit institutional efforts for peacebuilding. For example, negative ethnicity, electoral malpractice, corruption and inequality in resource allocations are issues that are imbedded in the structural and social fabric of the society in Kenya and require system-wide approaches in addition to peace education. This study concludes that there is a need for governments and educators to advocate for and implement policies and practices that incorporate local knowledge in peace education curriculum. It also suggests the need for a system-wide policy that address social and structural practices that exacerbate tensions and violence within all institutions.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Modeling Evaluation Learning in Africa: The Case of Kenya Public Universities
    (2022-09) Maikuri, Antony
    Kenya strives to achieve education for all to contribute to its development needs. Like other countries globally, Kenya's national education goals aim to educate its citizens to play important roles in the economy. To measure this trajectory on its citizens, evaluation has become a critical tool used by decision-makers to seek evidence and assist in making choices. Evaluation theory and practice should be realistic, credible, and accurate in providing evidence to stakeholders. It also must be efficient, effective, and reliable to all development systems and structures. However, with evaluation rooted in western paradigms and approaches, international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Kenya dominate its demand and supply. The supply for evaluation in Kenya is fostered by Kenyan universities that facilitate training and learning of evaluation studies. At the same time, Kenya's education system (eight years of primary education, four years of secondary education, and four years of higher education) that is mainly government-funded has relied on summative evaluation as the standard measure of performance, grades and achievements. On the other hand, NGOs in Kenya practice both summative and formative evaluation; Kenyan evaluators often use evaluation practices and theories that are borrowed from outside Kenya. With the understanding that the NGO market is the major influence over the types of evaluations practiced in Kenya, this research aims to understand how Kenyan university-based evaluation study programs are conceptualized, developed, and implemented in Kenya. The year-long study focused on professors from six different Kenyan public universities on their understanding of how they conceptualize evaluation as an area of study in Kenya. The second research question focuses on the conditions that influence the development and implementation of evaluation studies, and the third question seeks what strategies and approaches are necessary to develop evaluative capacity in Kenya. The study entailed a qualitative research design utilizing a social constructivist grounded theory and semi-structured interviews with faculty informants. The primary findings of this study are as follows: (1) Participants viewed that evaluation studies programs varied across universities. For example, a number of universities had evaluation courses only at the undergraduate level, whereas some had courses at the graduate level. (2) There is a lack of support from the Kenyan government both in funding evaluation development and absorption of evaluation structures in government ministries and agencies. (3) When looking at conditions influencing evaluation growth in Kenya, participants shared that the SDGs are shaping evaluation education among Kenyans due to the need for accountability and development growth. (4) Study participants shared that to grow the field of evaluation in the Kenyan education system and development, there is a need to contextualize the field to better understand the benefits of evaluation. In other words, building evaluative capacity includes Kenya's cultural traditions and values. This study reveals the relational nature of Kenya's educational system, the influence of international development, and the needs of Kenyan citizens. Professors who teach evaluation in Kenya have an influence on all three relational aspects in shaping understanding, perspectives, and strategies to use evaluation for the greater development good. Subsequently, the findings of this research illustrate the limitations and promises of higher education as an avenue to shape development and grow the field of evaluation. This study concludes that there is a need for capacity building within the Kenyan government, institutions, universities, educators, and practitioners to use Kenyan knowledge and context to build and expand upon evaluation theories and practices. The emerging evaluative field of study requires collaboration and participation of all stakeholders when shaping knowledge and theories that are responsive to Kenyan needs.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    One coin, two sides: eliciting expert knowledge from training participants in a capacity-building program for veterinary professionals
    (2021-08) Adamchick, Julie; Perez Aguirreburualde, Maria Sol; Perez, Andres M.; O'Brien, Mary K.
    Scientific research may include the elicitation of judgment from non-academic subject-matter experts in order to improve the quality and/or impact of research studies. Elicitation of expert knowledge or judgment is used when data are missing, incomplete, or not representative for the specific setting and processes being studied. Rigorous methods are crucial to ensure robust study results, and yet the quality of the elicitation can be affected by a number of practical constraints, including the understanding that subject-matter experts have of the elicitation process itself. In this paper, we present a case of expert elicitation embedded within an extended training course for veterinary professionals as an example of overcoming these constraints. The coupling of the two activities enabled extended opportunities for training and a relationship of mutual respect to be the foundation for the elicitation process. In addition, the participatory research activities reinforced knowledge synthesis objectives of the educational program. Finally, the synergy between the two concurrent objectives may produce benefits which transcend either independent activity: solutions and ideas built by local professionals, evolving collaborative research and training approaches, and a network of diverse academic and practicing professionals. This approach has the versatility to be adapted to many training and research opportunities.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Self-reporting of risk pathways and parameter values for foot and mouth disease in slaughter cattle from alternative production systems by Kenyan and Ugandan veterinarians
    (2021-08) Adamchick, Julie; Rich, Karl M.; Perez, Andres M.
    Countries in which foot and mouth disease (FMD) is endemic may face bans on the export of FMD-susceptible livestock and products because of the associated risk for transmission of FMD virus. Risk assessment is an essential tool for demonstrating the fitness of one’s goods for the international marketplace and for improving animal health. However, it is difficult to obtain the necessary data for such risk assessments in many countries where FMD is present. This study bridged the gaps of traditional participatory and expert elicitation approaches by partnering with veterinarians from the National Veterinary Services of Kenya (n=13) and Uganda (n=10) enrolled in an extended capacity-building program to systematically collect rich, local knowledge in a format appropriate for formal quantitative analysis. Participants mapped risk pathways and quantified variables that determine the risk of infection among cattle at slaughter originating from each of four beef production systems in each country. Findings highlighted that risk processes differ between management systems, that disease and sale are not always independent events, and that events on the risk pathway are influenced by the actions and motivations of value chain actors. The results provide necessary information for evaluating the risk of FMD among cattle pre-harvest in Kenya and Uganda and provide a framework for similar evaluation in other endemic settings.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Social, Field And Regional Conditions Of Knowledge: News On Darfur In African Media
    (2018-06) Wahutu, Nicholas
    This project is embedded within Max Weber’s 1910 call to study the press while taking his message to a region of the world that is often studied within sociology for what it lacks rather than as one engaging in activities that could be considered on their merit. With few exceptions, sociology has approached sub-Saharan Africa as a space that is paradigmatic of incompleteness and beset by continual setbacks. By and large, sociological scholarship on knowledge production is still constrained by coloniality, which leads to a privileging of western organizations’ construction of knowledge while treating knowledge production by organizations in Africa as ephemeral. The result of this imbalance is that we know more about how the New York Times and Washington Post covered Rwanda and Darfur than how Kenya’s The Daily Nation represented either atrocity. Because sociology has been mostly silent on how countries neighboring Darfur covered the atrocity, there is an implicit message that African fields are not part of the ‘global’ in the same way fields in the global north are. To analyze how African media fields construct knowledge about mass atrocity, this dissertation project is based on a content analysis of every single news article on Darfur from Kenya, South Africa and Rwanda published between 1st of January 2003 and 31st December 2008. Results from this content analysis are used to provide overarching themes of how Darfur was represented in these three countries. Although these data suggest convergence in how Darfur was framed by media fields analyzed here - and those from the global north examined by Joachim Savelsberg- this project’s focus on by-lines to differentiate articles by African journalists from those lifted from wire agencies provides a level of nuance hither missing. While the content analysis offers macro-level evidence for how Darfur was covered, it is sufficient in explaining why and how African media fields employ these frames. To provide this explanation, journalist interviews were conducted in Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria from the summer of 2012 to the summer of 2015. These interviews were conducted in Nairobi, Mombasa, Johannesburg, and Lagos. All except three were conducted face to face and the three over the phone. Overall, findings suggest that, although African journalists and scholars are often critical of the use of the ethnic conflict frame as reliant on colonial tropes, arguing that it de-contextualizes and de-politicizes atrocities, they used this frame relatively frequently. Further, although most of the sources quoted were Sudanese state actors, non-Sudanese African sources were marginalized by both wire agencies and African journalists. Sources from the United States and the United Kingdom played a more prominent role in influencing narratives about Darfur in the countries studied here. African media fields are primary narrative constructors of the atrocities in Darfur for African audiences. Being African conspires to produce a condition of invisibility and erasure of African voices in the global narrative construction of knowledge about mass atrocity.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Stable Isotope Paleoenvironmental Reconstructions of the Late Pleistocene and Early Miocene Sites on Rusinga and Mfangano Islands, Lake Victoria, Kenya
    (2016-12) Garrett, Nicole
    Paleoenvironmental reconstructions are a key component when trying to understand a species evolutionary history as environmental pressures play a critical role in the evolution of species. This dissertation, on the Late Pleistocene and early Miocene deposits of Rusinga and Mfangano Islands, Lake Victoria, Kenya, uses carbon and oxygen isotope analyses of paleosol carbonates, bulk sedimentary organic matter, isolated biomarkers from organic matter, and mammalian tooth enamel to reconstruct the various habitats available to the mammalian communities. Present within the Late Pleistocene deposits on Rusinga and Mfangano Island are Middle Stone Age tools, indicating the presence of at least one population of early Homo sapiens. The analysis included within (Chapter 1) of the Late Pleistocene habitats indicates stream- or spring-side woodlands within a larger C4 grassland with climates drier than present today. The early Miocene deposits on Rusinga include a well-preserved primate community with remains of the primitive hominoid Ekembo as well as specimens from Dendropithecus and the lesser-known catarrhines Limnopithecus and Nyanzapithecus. The paleoenvironmental reconstructions for the early Miocene deposits (Chapters 2-3) provide an important evolutionary context for the evolution and diversification of catarrhines, including the earliest members of our own ape-human lineage. The analysis of the Early Miocene habitats indicates a temporally and spatially dynamic mixture of C3 habitats was available to the faunal community, which included close-canopy habitats experiencing CO2 recycling as well as environments with plants undergoing light and or water stress (i.e., unshaded areas). The data from the early Miocene also indicates there were distinct habitats present at Rusinga, with the younger habitats exhibiting either an increase in mean annual temperature, an increase in aridity (evaporation), a decrease in mean annual precipitation or some combination of the three climatic factors. Overall, this analysis indicates the early Miocene primates from Rusinga were able to cope and even thrive in a dynamic and varied landscape by inhabiting both closed and open habitats, including woodlands, bush/shrublands or woody grasslands. For the primitive hominoids, this level of habitat flexibility suggests it may have been an important primitive characteristic for apes.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Youth's response to entrepreneurship education and training: a case study of out-of-school youth in Nairobi
    (2013-05) Ojwang, Tom Odhiambo
    Since independence, Kenya has been grappling with high levels of poverty and unemployment, with the youth being the most affected. Thus, it is against this background that governmental and non-governmental interventions to eradicate poverty and unemployment in the country largely target the youth through entrepreneurship education and training programs. Some scholars, however, contend that there has been little research on youth perspectives on the effectiveness of this approach to empower them with work and life skills. This study, therefore, examined how out-of-school youth in Nairobi responded to an NGO's entrepreneurship education and training program. Quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews with the youth participating in the NGO's program revealed that despite a few points of variance between the youth and NGO perspectives, the youth's response to the program generally conformed to the goals of the NGO itself.