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<p>The arrival of the cell phone in rural areas has taken Kenya by storm. It has turned out to be such an amazing transition happening since most people in the start, did not reckon its capacity to gradually become a lifestyle choice. It has certainly changed the way people communicate and becoming a natural necessity for people of Kenya. This can be seen from the numbers of cell phone units sold in the past years. The cell phones in Kenya have gone from 1 million in 2002 to 6.5 million in 2006. Some of this boost has found their way into the rural areas of Kenya and that is what this thesis focuses on. Through a qualitative research approach presented as a case study provide both vigorous descriptions and exiting information. The case study is based mainly on material from telephone interviews that were carried out with a selected sample of the population living in the countryside to obtain their points of view. In addition some opinions received in email form from an organization based in the western part of Kenya is included. A related email questionnaire was administered to one of the companies that sell cell phones in Kenya. Reference has been made to previous research to present some insightful frame of reference on this subject. In conclusion the people in rural parts of Kenya use the short messaging service (SMS) as the most cost effective way of communication. Furthermore, the M-Pesa function on that enables users to make money transactions is also widely used since most people in these areas do not have a bank account. The cell phone has transformed the job market and had a tremendous impact on running a business and made it easier to be available when looking for jobs. It is clear that the cell phone has brought practical, social and economical change and contributing to cultural enhancement. There is however future needs as to solve the battery charging which is a main problem that rural inhabitant have to deal with. This thesis finally shows that the penetration of the cell phone in rural Kenya is of great success. The cell phone is a technique to bridge the gap between cities and rural areas in Kenya.</p>

The meeting of the basic needs of people, particularly the poor, has come to be an important focus of rural development efforts in the Third World. This is largely due to the realization that the benefits of previous development efforts have not reached the poor. The basic needs concept of development places the focus on the ends of development. This means a direct attack on poverty through meeting the basic human requirements of the neediest segment of society, the poor. There are two approaches that can be taken when one adopts the basic needs concept as the theoretical framework for a project. The first is a top down effort concerned with satisfying basic needs as quickly as possible and is referred to in this thesis as a technocratic approach to meeting basic needs. The second is concerned with developing a sustainable project based on the community so that it can continue to meet its basic needs and is referred to in this thesis as a community development approach to meeting basic needs. The purpose of this thesis is to identify those elements in the planning process that contribute to the success of efforts to meet basic needs in developing countries. Success is defined as the meeting of immediate and long term water needs leading to improvements in health, economic and social conditions of communities. To accomplish this objective a literature review of efforts to meet the basic need of water is undertaken. The focus is on identifying elements found in the literature, dominated by advocates of the community development approach to meeting basic needs, which contributed to the success of rural water supply projects in providing an adequate supply of water to the poor. These success elements can be grouped in the following five categories: appropriate knowledge; appropriate technology; appropriate institutions; appropriate support; and community participation. The assumption articulated by most writers is that each of these five elements is an essential part of a community development approach to meeting basic needs. There is very little in the literature on the technocratic approach, yet it is used in practice. A case study of a rural water supply project in Kenya, East Africa, which used a technocratic approach, was undertaken with the expectation that it would show a lack of success because of its failure to include the five elements of the community development approach. In fact, the project was found to be a success. However, the study did reveal that the planners involved in the project now believe that, for the long run sustainability of the project, it is vital to make the five elements of the community development approach an essential part of the project. The main conclusion of the thesis is that a project using a technocratic approach to meeting basic needs can succeed in the short run but that for this project to continue to be successful there comes a point where the elements assumed to be part of the community development approach to meeting basic needs must be included. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

Water, sanitation and hygiene-related diseases are responsible for 7% of all deaths and 8% of all disability adjusted live years (DALYs), as well as the loss of 320 million days of productivity in developing countries. Though laboratory and field trials have shown that household water treatment (HWT) technologies can quickly improve the microbiological quality of drinking water, questions remain about the effectiveness of these technologies under real-world conditions. Furthermore, the value that rural communities attach to HWT is unknown, and it is not clear why, in spite of the fact that rural African households need household water treatment (HWT) most, they are the least likely to use them. The primary objective of this multi-level study was to assess the post-implementation effectiveness of selected HWT technologies in the Nyanza and Western Provinces of Kenya. The study was carried out in the rainy season between March and May, 2011 using a mixed method approach. Evidence was collected in order to build a case of evidence of HWT effectiveness or ineffectiveness in a post-implementation context. A quasi-experimental design was used first to conduct a Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices (KAP) survey in 474 households in ten intervention and five control villages (Chapter 3). The survey assessed the context in which household water treatment was being used in the study villages to provide real-world information for assessing the effectiveness of the technologies. An interviewer-administered questionnaire elicited information about the water, sanitation and hygiene-related KAP of the study communities. A household water treatment (HWT) survey (Chapter 4) was carried out in the same study households and villages as the KAP study, using a semi-structured questionnaire to gather HWT adoption, compliance and sustained use-related information to provide insight into the perceived value the study households attach to HWT technologies, and their likelihood of adoption of and compliance with these technologies. The drinking water quality of 171 (one quarter of those surveyed during KAP) randomly selected households was determined and tracked from source to the point of use (Chapter 5). This provided insights into HWT effectiveness by highlighting the need for HWT (as indicated by source water quality) and the effect of the study households’ KAP on drinking water quality (as indicated by the stored water quality). Physico-chemical and microbiological water quality of the nineteen improved and unimproved sources used by the study households was determined, according to the World Health Organisation guidelines. The microbiological quality of 291 water samples in six intervention and five control villages was determined from source to the point-of-use (POU) using the WHO and Sphere Drinking Water Quality Guidelines. An observational study design was then used to assess the post-implementation effectiveness of the technologies used in 37 households in five intervention villages (Chapter 6). Three assessments were carried out to determine the changes in the microbiological quality of 107 drinking water samples before treatment (from collection container) and after treatment (from storage container) by the households. The criteria used to assess the performance of the technologies were microbial efficacy, robustness and performance in relation to sector standards. A Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment (QMRA) was then carried out in the HWT effectiveness study households to assess the technologies’ ability to reduce the users’ exposure to and probability of infection with water-borne pathogens (Chapter 7). The KAP survey showed that the intervention and control communities did not differ significantly in 18 out of 20 socio-economic variables that could potentially be influenced by the structured manner of introducing HWT into the intervention villages. The majority of the intervention group (IG) and the control group (CG) were poor or very poor on the basis of household assets they owned. The predominant level of education for almost two-thirds of the IG and CG respondents was primary school (completed and non-completed). Though very few were unemployed in IG (8.07%) and CG (14.29%), the two groups of respondents were predominantly engaged in subsistence farming — a low income occupation. With regard to practices, both groups had inadequate access to water and sanitation with only one in two of the households in both IG and CG using improved water sources as their main drinking water source in the non-rainy season. One in ten households in both study groups possessed an improved sanitation facility, though the CG was significantly more likely to practice open defecation than the IG. The self-reported use of soap in both study groups was mainly for bathing and not for handwashing after faecal contact with adult or child faeces. Despite the study groups' knowledge about diarrhoea, both groups showed a disconnection between their knowledge about routes of contamination and barriers to contamination. The most frequent reason for not treating water was the perceived safety of rain water in both the IG and CG. / The HWT adoption survey revealed poor storage and water-handling practices in both IG and CG, and that very few respondents knew how to use the HWT technologies correctly: The IG and CG were similar in perceived value attached to household water treatment. All HWT technologies had a lower likelihood of adoption compared to the likelihood of compliance indicators in both IG and CG. The users’ perceptions about efficacy, time taken and ease of use of the HWT technologies lowered the perceived value attached to the technologies. The assessment of the drinking water quality used by the study communities indicated that the improved sources had a lower geometric mean E. coli and total coliform count than the unimproved sources. Both categories of sources were of poor microbiological quality and both exceeded the Sphere Project (2004) and the WHO (2008) guidelines for total coliforms and E. Coli respectively The study communities’ predominant drinking water sources, surface water and rainwater were faecally contaminated (geometric mean E. coli load of 388.1±30.45 and 38.9±22.35 cfu/100 ml respectively) and needed effective HWT. The improved sources were significantly more likely than the unimproved sources to have a higher proportion of samples that complied with the WHO drinking water guidelines at source, highlighting the importance of providing improved water sources. The lowest levels of faecal contamination were observed between the collection and storage points which coincided with the stage at which HWT is normally applied, suggesting an HWT effect on the water quality. All water sources had nitrate and turbidity levels that exceeded the WHO stipulated guidelines, while some of the improved and unimproved sources had higher than permissible levels of lead, manganese and aluminium. The water source category and the mouth type of the storage container were predictive of the stored water quality. The active treater households had a higher percentage of samples that complied with WHO water quality guidelines for E. coli than inactive treater households in both improved and unimproved source categories. In inactive treater households, 65% of storage container water samples from the improved sources complied with the WHO guidelines in comparison to 72% of the stored water samples in the active treater households. However the differences were not statistically significant. The HWT technologies did not attain sector standards of effective performance: in descending order, the mean log10 reduction in E. coli concentrations after treatment of water from unimproved sources was PUR (log₁₀ 2.0), ceramic filters (log₁₀ 1.57), Aquatab (log₁₀ 1.06) and Waterguard (log₁₀ 0.44). The mean log10 reduction in E. coli after treatment of water from improved sources was Aquatab (log₁₀ 2.3), Waterguard (log₁₀ 1.43), PUR (log₁₀ 0.94) and ceramic filters (log₁₀ 0.16). The HWT technologies reduced the user’s daily exposure to water-borne pathogens from both unimproved and improved drinking water sources. The mean difference in exposure after treatment of water from unimproved sources was ceramic filter (log₁₀ 2.1), Aquatab (log₁₀ 1.9), PUR (log₁₀ 1.5) and Waterguard (log₁₀ 0.9), in descending order. The mean probability of infection with water-borne pathogens (using E.coli as indicator) after consumption of treated water from both improved and unimproved sources was reduced in users of all the HWT technologies. The difference in reduction between technologies was not statistically significant. The study concluded that despite the apparent need for HWT, the study households’ inadequate knowledge, poor attitudes and unhygienic practices make it unlikely that they will use the technologies effectively to reduce microbial concentrations to the standards stipulated by accepted drinking water quality guidelines. The structured method of HWT promotion in the intervention villages had not resulted in more hygienic water and sanitation KAP in the IG compared to the CG, or significant differences in likelihood of adoption and compliance with the assessed HWT technologies. Despite attaching a high perceived value to HWT, insufficient knowledge about how to use the HWT technologies and user concerns about factors such as ease of use, accessibility and time to use will impact negatively on adoption and compliance with HWT, notwithstanding their efficacy during field trials. Even though external support had been withdrawn, the assessed HWT technologies were able improve the quality of household drinking water and reduce the exposure and risk of water-borne infections. However, the improvement in water quality and reduction in risk did not attain sector guidelines, highlighting the need to address the attitudes, practices and design criteria identified in this study which limit the adoption, compliance and effective use of these technologies. These findings have implications for HWT interventions, emphasising the need for practice-based behavioural support alongside technical support.

The arrival of the cell phone in rural areas has taken Kenya by storm. It has turned out to be such an amazing transition happening since most people in the start, did not reckon its capacity to gradually become a lifestyle choice. It has certainly changed the way people communicate and becoming a natural necessity for people of Kenya. This can be seen from the numbers of cell phone units sold in the past years. The cell phones in Kenya have gone from 1 million in 2002 to 6.5 million in 2006. Some of this boost has found their way into the rural areas of Kenya and that is what this thesis focuses on. Through a qualitative research approach presented as a case study provide both vigorous descriptions and exiting information. The case study is based mainly on material from telephone interviews that were carried out with a selected sample of the population living in the countryside to obtain their points of view. In addition some opinions received in email form from an organization based in the western part of Kenya is included. A related email questionnaire was administered to one of the companies that sell cell phones in Kenya. Reference has been made to previous research to present some insightful frame of reference on this subject. In conclusion the people in rural parts of Kenya use the short messaging service (SMS) as the most cost effective way of communication. Furthermore, the M-Pesa function on that enables users to make money transactions is also widely used since most people in these areas do not have a bank account. The cell phone has transformed the job market and had a tremendous impact on running a business and made it easier to be available when looking for jobs. It is clear that the cell phone has brought practical, social and economical change and contributing to cultural enhancement. There is however future needs as to solve the battery charging which is a main problem that rural inhabitant have to deal with. This thesis finally shows that the penetration of the cell phone in rural Kenya is of great success. The cell phone is a technique to bridge the gap between cities and rural areas in Kenya.

Mehr als zwei Drittel der Menschen unterhalb der Armutsgrenze in Sub-Sahara Afrika leben im ländlichen Raum; vier Fünftel von ihnen erwirtschaften ihren Lebensunterhalt überwiegend durch landwirtschaftliche Aktivitäten. Somit spielt die Landwirtschaft eine herausragende Rolle in der ländlichen Wirtschaftsentwicklung und Armutsbekämpfung. Dem Sektor kam in der letzten Dekade wieder gestiegene Aufmerksamkeit durch Ent-wicklungsforschung und Entwicklungszusammenarbeit zu. Jedoch ist der Zusammen-hang zwischen landwirtschaftlichen Aktivitäten und ihrem Beitrag zur Überwindung der Armut auf der Haushaltsebene („poverty exit”) kaum empirisch analysiert. In Kenia trägt der Agrarsektor 26 % zum BIP bei, vor- und nachgelagerten Bereiche zusätzliche 27 %. Mehr als 70 % der ländlichen Bevölkerung arbeiten in der Landwirt-schaft; landesweit sind das mehr als 40 % der Gesamtbevölkerung. Seit der Jahrtau-sendwende ist der Sektor im Durchschnitt um 3 % gewachsen, allerdings mit hoher Varianz. Seitdem haben sich viele kleinbäuerliche Haushalte in landwirtschaftliche Wert-schöpfungsketten wie Exportgemüse oder Milch integriert. Gleichzeitig sank die ländli-che Armutsrate von 49,7 % auf 40,1 %. Was also war der Beitrag der Wertschöpfungs-kettenentwicklung auf die ländliche Armutsreduktion? Diese Arbeit untersucht am Beispiel Kenias, warum manche ländlichen Haushalte die Armut überwunden haben und welche landwirtschaftlichen Aktivitäten dazu geführt haben. Die Basis dafür bilden drei unterschiedliche Stränge in der Literatur: die Pro-Poor Growth-Debatte, die Wertschöpfungskettenliteratur, und die Armutsforschung entlang des sogenannten „Q-Squared Paradigms“. Elemente dieser drei Stränge bilden das analy-tische Gerüst für die empirische Analyse im ländlichen Kenia und kombinieren quanti-tative und qualitative Methoden. Zuerst wurde das ländliche Haushaltpanel „TAMPA“ mit 1275 ländlichen Haushalten über einen Zeitraum von 10 Jahren (1997-2007) nach Haushalten ausgewertet, die die Armut überwunden haben. Eine Stichprobe von 51 dieser Haushalte wurde im Jahr 2010 nachbefragt, um die spezifischen Gründe für den wirtschaftlichen Aufstieg zu analysieren. Die Ergebnisse dieser Befragung lassen sich auf zwei Ebenen interpretieren und leisten daher zwei unterschiedliche Beiträge zur ländlichen Armutsforschung: erstens methodi-sche Hinweise zur Datenerfassung und -interpretation ländlicher Haushaltspanele in Afrika; zweitens Erkenntnisse zu effektiven Strategien, wie die Integration in landwirt-schaftliche Wertschöpfungsketten zur Überwindung ländlicher Armut führen kann. Das zentrale methodische Ergebnis liegt darin, dass obwohl die quantitativen Daten von vier Haushaltsbefragungen im Rahmen des Panels eindeutig eine Überwindung der Armut bei allen 51 Haushalten zeigen, nur 25 dieser Haushalt tatsächlich der Armut entkommen sind. Die anderen 26 Haushalte haben sich unterschiedlich entwickelt oder sind Messfehlern unterlegen. Die Lebensgeschichten („life histories“) der 25 Haushalte, die die Armut überwunden hatten, zeigen jedoch eindeutig, dass die Integration in landwirtschaftliche Wertschöpfungsketten tatsächlich einen sehr guten Entwicklungs-pfad aus der Armut bieten kann, wenn die landwirtschaftlichen Aktivitäten produktiv und marktorientiert sind und Investitionen und Innovationsadoption erfahren. Die Mischung aus Spezialisierung auf eine kommerzielle Wertschöpfungskette, die Elemente kollektiver Vermarktungsstrukturen wie Kooperativen aufweist, einerseits und risikomi-nimierender Diversifizierung inklusive ernährungsrelevantem Eigenkonsum anderer-seits, scheint hierbei der erfolgreichste Weg aus der ländlichen Armut zu sein. Beide Ergebnisbereiche führen zu Schlussfolgerungen, wie zukünftig landwirtschaftliche Wertschöpfungskettenförderung den Fokus auf Armutsreduzierung stärken kann und wie die Armutsforschung die Umsetzung solcher Projekte und deren Armutseffekte besser messen könnte.:1 INTRODUCTION 2 POVERTY AND GROWTH DEBATES AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR AID TO AGRICULTURE 3 POVERTY DYNAMICS AND POVERTY EXITS: CONCEPTS, METHODOLOGIES AND CASES STUDIES 4 EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE: POVERTY EXITS IN RURAL KENYA 5 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS / In Sub-Saharan Africa, more than two thirds of the poor live in rural areas and four out of every five households are making a living predominantly based on agricultural and livestock activities. Agriculture plays a major role in stimulating rural economic development and in driving rural households out of poverty. Hence, the sector experienced a revival in development cooperation and devel-opment research during the past decade. However, it is rarely analysed which agricultural strategies rural households undertake to successfully exit poverty. In Kenya, agriculture is key to the economy, contributing 26 % of the GDP di-rectly and another 27 % indirectly. The sector provides employment for more than 40 % of the total population and more than 70 % of the rural population. Since the Millennium, the sector experienced an average growth rate of 3 % per year, albeit high variances. Since then, many small-scale farmers in Kenya have integrated their economic activities into agricultural value chains, such as food crops, export horticulture or dairy. At the same time, rural poverty incidence re-duced from 49.9 % to 40.1 %, but is still significantly higher than urban poverty. So what was the impact of value chain development on rural poverty reduction? This research analyses why some rural households exited poverty and to what extent these poverty exits are explained by their agricultural activities. Based on a literature review of the pro-poor growth debate, of agricultural value chain de-velopment and of poverty research along the ‘q-squared-paradigm', the results from three different schools are combined for the design of an empirical field survey in rural Kenya applying quantitative and qualitative methods. First, the ten-year TAMPA panel data set for 1275 rural households was analysed for the identification of poverty exiting households. These poverty exiters were then sampled again for qualitative follow-up interviews in order to specifically analyse their explanation for their upward mobility. 51 households were visited and in-terviewed for their agricultural life history in 2010. The results are two-fold: first, even though the four wave panel data for all 51 households showed a clear upward trend, only 25 households turned out to have actually exited poverty between 1997 and 2007. The other 26 households had either never been poor or were still poor, or had progressed in their lifecycle and remaining resources were divided by fewer dependants. Thus, a number of con-clusions are drawn for the interpretation and further use of such panel data. Sec-ond, the interviews with ‘real’ poverty exiters confirm that the integration into agricultural value chains can offer a stable pathway out of poverty, if the agricul-ture and livestock portfolio of the households is productive, receives invest-ments and innovation, is commercially oriented and linked to markets. Against the common notion that specialisation in few activities usually marks this neces-sary productivity, here, a combined specialised and diversified pathway is ob-served to be most successful. Agricultural value chain development with a focus on horizontal cooperation and collective marketing of cash crops or dairy in combination with a diversified food crop portfolio seems to have been the most promising pathway out of rural poverty. Both result areas provide recommendations for the implementation of future ag-ricultural value chain projects as well as for future rural poverty research.:1 INTRODUCTION 2 POVERTY AND GROWTH DEBATES AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR AID TO AGRICULTURE 3 POVERTY DYNAMICS AND POVERTY EXITS: CONCEPTS, METHODOLOGIES AND CASES STUDIES 4 EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE: POVERTY EXITS IN RURAL KENYA 5 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

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This exploratory study assessed attitudes and perceptions of smallholder farmers towards agricultural technologies in Kakamega County, Kenya. Through a mixed-methods sequential design, the study evaluated the key variables predicting farmer adoption of agricultural innovations. While social sciences provide a clear human-driven pattern explaining the process of choices and behaviors regarding technology use, there is still little clarity on the influences of adoption decisions among smallholder farmers in rural Kenya. Using the diffusion of innovations theory, the study explored the attitudes and perceptions of smallholder farmers toward technology adoption in seven sub-counties of Kakamega County (Lurambi, Ikolomani, Shinyalu, Mumias East (Shianda), Malava Butere, and Khwisero). The study design utilized a quantitative survey of 245 smallholder heads of households, followed by focus group discussions to further probe attitudes, values and practices that could influence technology adoption. The survey questionnaire tested two hypotheses: (H1) socio-demographic characteristics are related to agricultural technology adoption; and, (H2) farmer access to extension services was related to agricultural technology adoption. A binary logistic regression model was used to quantitatively estimate socio-demographic variables presumed to influence the adoption of agricultural innovations. Subsequently, four informal focus group discussions of 28 discussants was conducted across representative sub-counties (Lurambi, Shianda, Malava and Ikolomani), to elicit an in-depth understanding of farmers’ perspectives on technology adoption. The focus group participants included farmers recruited from among survey participants. The qualitative research instrument sought to answer three questions, (RQ1) what are farmer attitudes and perceptions towards agricultural technologies; (RQ2) what socio-cultural values influence farmers’ choice of agricultural technologies; and, (RQ3) what sources do farmers use for obtaining information on agricultural technology? Quantitative results included a principal component analysis (PCA) in which 14 attitudes questions were reduced to five conceptual clusters. These clusters included: challenges in accessing modern agricultural technologies (explained 19.09% of the total variance); effectiveness of agricultural technologies (11.88%); enjoyment of agricultural technologies (10.02%); social influence in use of technology (9.47%); and experience with agricultural technologies (8.13%). A logistic regression model indicated that independently age (.07), education (.10), and off-farm income (.08) were significantly associated with adoption of technology at the 90% confidence level when controlling for all other variables in the model. However, agricultural extension (.42) was not a significant predictor of agricultural technology adoption in this model. Qualitative results provided rich insights which enhanced findings from the survey data. Key insights in the thematic analysis included: farmers’ ambivalence about agricultural technologies; lack of trust in agricultural agents; low levels of agricultural technology knowledge; extension services as the main source of information dissemination to farmers; predominance of gender in determining agricultural technology adoption; and gender inequity in agricultural decision-making. In conclusion, the study results suggested that a mixed-methods approach was valuable in probing the nuances of farmers’ perceptions of agricultural extension and technology adoption among smallholder farmers. The results supported the following recommendations: the agricultural extension efforts could be more effectively structured in order to support the dissemination of agricultural information; the issue of gender should be adequately addressed by engaging male and female in collaborative agricultural efforts to help break the barrier of gender inequity; and future research would benefit from disaggregating public and private extension services as a more robust method for determining their individual effects in the promotion of agricultural innovations among smallholder farmers.