Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In this paper, I present a theoretical argument that only certain families may respond to the spread of formal schooling in nations characterized by weak or fragile states and the thickening of civil society. I begin with a review of the literature placing educational expansion within the twin contexts of state fragility vis-a-vis society and expanding organizational pluralism (e.g., civil society). Then, I present my argument that families are differentially prepared to respond to increasing demands placed on them for resources and for "commitment" to formal schooling through the vehicle of self help development enterprises. Thereafter, I present an exploratory analysis of family contributions to self help under diverse state-society contexts in two African nations, Malawi and Kenya, using original data collected in 1996 and 1997. Logistic regression results revealed tht family participation in local development organizations increases the odds of self help participation across national and regional contexts. The power of other family and community-level factors to predict which families have responded to state fragility and organizational pluralism is mixed, dependent upon national and regional contexts. I conclude with a discussion of the implications of my study for theory education policy, and future research.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In this paper Weibull unobserved heterogeneity (frailty) survival models are utilised to analyse the determinants of infant and child mortality in Kenya. The results of these models are compared to those of standard Weibull survival models. The study particularly examines the extent to which child survival risks continue to vary net of observed factors and the extent to which non-frailty models are biased due to the violation of the statistical assumption of independence. The data came from the 1998 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey. The results of the standard Weibull survival models clearly show that biodemographic factors are more important in explaining infant mortality, while socioeconomic, socio-cultural and hygienic factors are more important in explaining child mortality. Frailty effects are highly substantial and significant both in infancy and in childhood, but the conclusions remain the same as in the non-frailty models.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Sub-Saharan Africa is the most affected region in the world by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. As of end of 2001 there were 28.5 million people in sub-Saharan Africa out of the global total of 40 million. The adult prevalence rate in the region is 9 per cent where as the global average is only 1.2 per cent. During the same period the epidemic claimed 3 million people. Out of which 2.2 million were in sub-Saharan Africa. Similarity, sub-Saharan Africa has a disproportionate share of AIDS orphaned children: out of 14 million orphans 11 million were in the region. Several studies have indicated the social and economic consequences of this epidemic and noted that the issue is beyond a health problem but a development concern. Thus, Africa's development priorities are subject to the adequacy of the response to the epidemic. This paper explores the situation in Kenya focusing on response in prevention, support and care both in the short and long term. The paper is based on an on-going research project of the Organisation for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA).

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper argues that foreign aid to Kenya in the period from 1960 to 2002 can be divided into three stages, each with its own aid trend and form of governance. These characteristics and the transition between phases result from a combination of domestic and international factors.
First, Kenya’s aid levels in the period 1960-78 remained relatively stable. As Britain’s initially high level of disbursement waned (a large part devoted to financing the transfer of land from departing Europeans to Africans), other donors increased their contributions. In fact, had the UK not cut its aid so dramatically in 1965-67, Kenya would have followed the trend elsewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa and the developing world of rising disbursements in the early 1970s. The US increased its attention to Kenya for its pro-Western stance in the unfolding Cold War dynamics and because of an increasing awareness of business opportunities for US capital. The World Bank saw in Kenya a model of high growth rates, in spite of rapid population growth, and a stable government much more committed to free market economics and international trade than other countries in the region. Donors appeared completely untroubled with the fact that Kenya was an authoritarian regime and that Jomo Kenyatta’s government committed significant human rights abuses and was characterized by significant high-level corruption.
Then, during the period from 1978 to 1990, as the continent-wide economic crisis took root, donors steadily increased their aid disbursements to Sub-Saharan Africa and even more dramatically so to Kenya, whereas total aid to developing countries remained relatively constant. Increased repression and corruption after Daniel arap Moi came to power did not deter donor support, let alone attract any significant attention. Kenya retained a much more interesting investment climate than most other African countries and still met specific Western strategic interests. The World Bank responded to some economic reform (and sometimes only promises) by stepping up assistance, increasing tied to economic policy reform, though this failed to renew growth.
Finally, between 1990 and 2002, aid to Kenya declined at a rate far exceeding the trend elsewhere. When donors began to resume increased levels of assistance to developing countries in the late 1990s, aid to Kenya did not follow suit. In 1990-91, donors suddenly grew disenchanted with the Moi’s regime’s corruption and autocracy. They acted in a rare degree of coordination and radically cut aid to Kenya. This was spurred in large part by the end of the Cold War and the decline in Western strategic interests in Africa—and corresponding rise in interest in democracy—, but also encouraged by Kenyan civil society pro-democracy movements. At the same time, good governance (a term introduced into donor discourse in 1989), defined to include greater political and economic freedoms, transparency and accountability, became widely accepted as a key ingredient to successful reform. This coordinated donor action forced Moi to permit multiparty competition, but a lack of commitment to see through the changes allowed Moi to retain power through elections that fell well short of free and fair. Between 1992 and 2002, donors repeatedly renewed and suspended aid, obtaining only very slow political and economic reform. At various times, fear of instability as well as donors’ own economic and security interests outweighed their commitment to obtaining compliance for political and economic conditionality.
In December 2002, KANU’s first-ever electoral defeat and the peaceful transfer of power the opposition marked an important new beginning in Kenya’s history. Like the previous three periods, aid during this period will depend on both internal policies and global trends, notably Kenya’s role in the ongoing US-led “war on terror”.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In the study of democratization in Africa, a huge body of
literature has attributed the changes to aid conditionality, civil
society activism, and changes in international political environment.
Contentious politics and the emergent social movements have
nevertheless received almost no attention in the literature. Kenya has
just emerged from a long period of contentious politics that ended with
the defeat of the Kenya Africa National Union (KANU) by the National
Alliance Rainbow Coalition (NARC), a grouping of 15 political parties.
The key questions the paper attempts to answer are, that in an
increasingly complex web of interaction that involves both domestic and
external political actors, interest groups, and state and society
interactions, are mono-causal accounts capable of capturing the vast
panoply of individual processes of democratization that are in most
cases country and context specific? Or, where regime change eventually
takes place, is it adequate to attribute the outcome to only one actor
be they elite, civil society, conditionality, or social movements? Is
it not possible that regime transition and democratization in general
is a product, not of a unilinear trajectory that could be explained by
single event, but that of a convergence of varying causal factors which
being context determined, thrive on opportunities and constraints
produced by contentious politics? Using an Integrative Process Model,
the paper proposes these three critical arguments namely: First, that
democratization and regime change is not the outcome a single
contributory factor, but that of multiple factors within a given context.
Second, successful regime change requires the full participation of a
section of the elite within the ruling party, generally in the
direction of change, and Third, regime change results from
opportunities that such participation open up in the ruling coalition,
which are then exploited by social movements.