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Showing all content in Kenya
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Publication - Policy Brief
Agro-dealer and farmer COVID-19 survey: April – June 2020
The researchers interviewed 973 crop farmers, 99 dairy farmers, and 483 agro-dealers to help assess the impacts of COVID-19 on smallholder farmers and other actors across the agricultural value chain. The researchers make several findings, including that a majority of farmers report financial distress and agro-dealers were seeing lower footfall traffic. However,...
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Project
Tracking price dynamics during a pandemic in Kenya and Uganda
As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds across the globe, economies face disruptions in global and national supply chains due to the pandemic itself and related government response measures. The disruptions pose a serious threat to food security. In Kenya and Uganda, policymakers are particularly worried about COVID-19 induced price spikes and supply shortages of essential...
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Blog post
Smart containment and social protection: Lessons from Kenya’s COVID-19 fight
During a time of high uncertainty, the Kenyan government has taken careful and considered steps towards containing COVID-19, while keeping as much of the economy functioning as possible. To work most effectively, the government’s smart containment strategy must be informed by data – more extensive COVID-19 testing is critical for this. As with many other African...
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Publication - Policy Brief
Tracking constraints to micro-entrepreneurship using IVR technology: Results from a pilot study in Kenya and Uganda
Current data collection exercises fail to capture the heterogeneity of entrepreneurs in developing countries in terms of scale. This project proposes a research agenda around understanding the constraints faced by micro-entrepreneurs, both formal and informal, through a series of mobile-based surveys (using IVR technology) delivered to small firms and...
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Publication - Policy Brief
How do credit and psychology affect the adoption of profitable energy efficient technologies in Kenya?
Energy efficient technologies are often cited for their potential to meet sustainable development goals by slowing greenhouse gas emissions and generating financial savings for households living in poverty, but adoption of energy efficient technologies remains low. This study conducts a randomised experiment with 1,000 low-income households in Nairobi. The authors...
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Project
Improving customer repayments practices for water and sewer services in Kenyan informal settlements
2.5 billion people in the developing world have no access to improved sanitation, and over a billion of them still practice open defecation. Rapid urbanisation has resulted in an increase of 183 million urban residents without access to improved sanitation. The inability of the utilities to deliver adequate sanitation services has disproportionately hurt poor urban...
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Project
From paper to practice: Implementing civil service reform in Ghana, Kenya and Zambia
This project aims to document and explain the implementation record of performance-oriented civil service reforms in Africa. It will use Ghana, Kenya, and Zambia as case studies. Most recent research on state effectiveness has focused on identifying the causal effects of particular management practices or experimental interventions. However, most large-scale changes to how...
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Project
The role of mobile-based trade credit on business development
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of most economies. They are flexible in responding to new opportunities and possess potential for rapid growth. As a result, SMEs are believed to serve as engines for innovation, employment, and social mobility. In developing countries, SMEs represent a particularly large part of the economy. However, data...
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Publication - Policy Brief
The local politics of social protection: Programmatic versus non-programmatic distributive politics in Kenya’s cash transfer programmes
A feature of many social protection programmes in Africa and elsewhere around the world is the delegation of significant responsibility to leaders and organisations at the local level. This brief looks at the extent to which social programmes are implemented programmatically —that is, according to the formal rules—or non-programmatically—that is, in a manner...
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Project
Six randomised controlled trials designed to improve learning outcomes for disadvantaged children in Sub-Saharan Africa
Education investment represents a large fraction of the total investment in many developing countries, but the skills of many pupils lag far behind those of their peers in richer countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, limiting human capital development and economic growth. With improved enrolment rates in primary education, the next step in many developing...