An examination of the environmental policy process provides insight into the mechanisms of decision-making that create and implement policies, which in turn affect planning outcomes and development directions. Such in-depth scrutiny has rarely emerged in the East African context, with few studies providing an analysis of the entire policy process and the actor network involved. This study offers a thick, descriptive narrative of the environmental policy arena in Nairobi, where rampant environmental degradation due to unconstrained development is occurring despite the existence of an environmental regulatory framework. The effects of newly implemented constitutional and strategic development reforms in this rapidly evolving African metropolis are also interrogated. The study lens shifts from the macro-level perspective of the policy system and context, to the micro-level of the institutional and individual actors, examining their roles, authority, and the interconnections between them. A qualitative case study approach is utilized, consisting of 25 semi-structured interviews conducted with environmental policymaking leaders in Nairobi. Both deductive (themes are applied to the data) and inductive (themes are derived from the data) analyses are applied to examine the research data in detail. The primary data is supplemented with numerous secondary sources, which provide a practical grounding for the primary analysis. The narrative that coalesces around the data themes uncovers the underlying causes for poor environmental regulation thus far, prominent among them being a lack of institutional capacity in state agencies; corrupt and nepotistic governance; and the splintering of the environmental mandate among numerous state institutions, leading to competition and conflict among them. Adam and Kriesi’s Network Approach (2007) is then critically adapted and applied, revealing the concentration of power in state authorities and disproportionate distribution of influence among non-state actors in the environmental policy subsystem. This policy network analysis shows how these conditions create the potential for low to moderate incremental policy change going forward.

This dissertation investigates the evolution of Kenya’s Internet communication technology (ICT) ecosystem and explores the barriers and subsequent enabling processes encountered when growing an ICT ecosystem in a resource-scarce context. Drawing upon 12 in-depth case studies of Kenyan tech entrepreneurs and 45 interviews with technology experts this dissertation provides a holistic perspective on the barriers and enablers that Kenyan technology entrepreneurs encounter across the areas of culture, human capital, finance, policy, entrepreneurial support systems, and markets. Together with relevant theory on how ecosystems emerge and advance the thesis develops a model that explains how ICT ecosystems can emerge in resource-scarce contexts. The model shows how locally available enabling processes may be drawn on to substitute and establish missing condition factors. Furthermore, this dissertation analyzes mobile technology's potential to tackle unemployment in Kenya and provides a critical evaluation of the embedded economic and developmental opportunity.:1. Introduction 1 1.1 The potential of mobile technology to tackle unemployment in Kenya 1.2 Kenya’s emerging “Silicon Savannah” 1.3 Introduction to the research context 1.3.1 Country Context: Kenya the East-African economic hub and its unemployment challenge 1.3.2 The “Silicon Savannah”: Kenya’s ICT entrepreneurship ecosystem 2. Literature chapter 2.1 Basic theoretical concepts 2.2 Mobile for development 2.2.1 Mobile for development fields 2.2.2 Critics of the M4D stream 2.2.3 Contextual challenges faced by M4D initiatives 2.3 Mobile for work (mWork) 2.3.1 The Virtual Economy: A market for virtually traded scarcities 2.3.2 Mobile Micro Work 2.3.3 Mobile for Recruitment 2.4 The ecosystem view on entrepreneruship 2.4.1 Theoretical basis: Cluster Theory and Regional Innovation Systems Theory 2.4.2 Distinguishing features of Entrepreneurship Ecosystem functioning 2.4.3 Emergence and development of ICT entrepreneurship ecosystems over time 2.4.4 The role of Policy in fostering EE growth 2.5 The context for entrepreneurship in Kenya 2.6 Technology entrepreneurship in Kenya: Challenges faced in the Silicon Savannah 3. Methodology Chapter 3.1 Research Design 3.2 Data collection and access 3.2.1 mWork sample selection 3.2.2 Interview conduct with mWork and other local ICT entrepreneurs 3.2.3 Sample selection and interview conduct with “Silicon Savannah” experts 3.3 Data Analysis 3.3.1 Interview data analysis 3.3.2 Case analysis: within case and cross case analysis 3.3.3 Development of the Model of Ecosystem Emergence 3.4 Measurement of mWork development impact 3.5 Other Methodological Considerations 3.5.1 Researcher‘s Role 3.5.2 Ethical Considerations 3.5.3 Credibility of findings 4. mWork in Kenya 4.1 Introduction: mWork in Kenya 4.2 Case presentation 4.2.1 mWork segment: Market Research 4.1.2 mWork Segment: Recruiting 4.2.3 mWork Segment: Mobile Micro Work 4.2.4 mWork segment: Market intermediaries 4.2.5 Overview of mWork Cases 4.3 Cross-case analysis 4.3.1 Feasibility of mWork approaches and challenges faced 4.3.2 Feasibility of business models suggested by literature in a Kenyan context 4.3.3 Overcoming challenges to mWork in Kenya: Four successful examples 4.4 Development impact of mWork 4.4.1 Development impact of mWork Segment Mobile Micro Work 4.4.2 Development impact of mWork segment market research 4.4.3 Development impact of mWork segment recruiting 4.4.4 (Potential) development impact of mWork segment: Market intermediary 5. The Kenyan “Silicon Savannah” 5.1 Empirical Findings: Barriers and enablers to technology entrepreneurship in Kenya 5.5.1 Ecosystem dimension: Culture 5.1.2 Ecosystem dimension: Supports 5.1.3 Ecosystem dimension: Human capital 5.1.4 Ecosystem dimension: Finance 5.1.5 Ecosystem dimension: Policy 5.1.6 Ecosystem dimension: Markets 5.2 Discussion of findings in the wider discourse of the Silicon Savannah 5.3 The unique nature of the phenomenon of technology entrepreneurship in Kenya 5.4 Main growth barriers in the “Silicon Savannah” and ICT EE s in the GS 5.5 Main growth enablers in the “Silicon Savannah” and early ICT EE s in the GS 5.6 Development trajectory of ICT EE s in resource-scarce contexts 6. Conclusion 6.1 Conclusion on the opportunity of mWork in Kenya 6.1.1 Summary of main findings 6.1.2 Theoretical implications 6.1.3 Practical implications 6.1.4 Limitations and further research 6.2 Conclusion on Kenyas “Silicon Savannah” 6.2.1 Summary of main findings 6.2.2 Theoretical implications 6.2.3 Practical implications and recommendations 6.2.4 Limitations and further research References Appendix

The aim of the study on which this thesis is based was to gain an understanding of the life situation of street children in Kenya and to investigate how caring institutions care for these children.  A reflexive ethnographic approach was used to facilitate entry into the children’s sub-culture and the work contexts of the caregivers to better understand how the children live on the streets and how the caregivers work with the children. A fundamental aim of the research was to develop interventions to care; one of the reasons why we also used the interpretive description approach. Method and data source triangulation was used. Field notes, tape, video, and photography were used to record the data.  Participant observation, group discussions, individual interviews, home visits, key informant interviews, participatory workshops and clinical findings were used for data collection in Studies I and II.  In addition to observation, interviews were conducted with caregivers for study III, while written narratives from learners attending adult education developed and implemented during the research period provided data for study IV.  Study I indicated that food, shelter and education were the main concerns for the children and that they had strong social bonds and used support networks as a survival strategy.  Study II provided a deeper understanding of the street culture, revealing how the boys are organised, patterns of substance use, home spaces in the streets and networks of support. The boys indicated that they wanted to leave the streets but opposed being moved to existing institutions of care. A group home was therefore developed in collaboration with members of the category “begging boys”.  Study III indicated how the caregivers’ interactions with the children were crucial in children’s decisions to leave the streets, to be initiated into residential care, undergo rehabilitation and to be reintegrated into society.  Caregivers who attempted to use participatory approaches and took time to establish rapport were more successful with the children.  Study IV suggested that the composition of learners, course content grounded on research, caregivers’ reflections and discursive role of researchers and facilitators, all contributed to adult learning that transformed the learners’ perspectives and practice.

No description available.

Choosing to Run: A History of Athletics and Gender in Kenya, c. 1940s – 1980s explores the history of gender and athletics in Kenya, with focus on the Rift Valley Province, from the onset of late colonial rule in the 1940s through the professionalisation of the sport during the last decades of the twentieth century. The first two empirical chapters provide a history of athletics during the colonial period. The first highlights the continuity of ideas about sport and masculinity that were developed in nineteenth century Britain and were subsequently perpetuated by the men in charge of colonial sport in Kenya. The next chapter considers how pre-colonial divisions of labour and power within Rift Valley communities informed local peoples' cultures of running. The absence of women’s running was not only the result of sexism translated from the British metropole to its Kenyan colony but also of pre-existing divisions of responsibilities of indigenous Kenyan men and women into separate, gendered domains. The second half of the thesis considers the impact of social change within women’s athletics internationally and of marriage, childbirth and education locally on female runners in the Rift Valley during the post-colonial period. Most women abandoned athletics once they reached maturity. Those who sought to do otherwise, as the final chapter argues, found that they could only do so by replicating the prototype of masculine runners that had already been established. Later, after the professionalisation of running allowed women to become wealthy, female patrons took this a step further by providing resources to those in their community in need, setting themselves up as 'Big (Wo)men'. This thesis uses athletics to reveal how gender relations and gender norms have evolved and the benefits and challenges that the sport has brought both to individual Kenyan women and their communities.