The Non-profit Sector in Kenya: What We Know and What We Don't Know

The primary aim of this publication is to set the stage for deepening our knowledge of the non-profit sector in Kenya. It contains figures on the growth, scope of activities, revenue and expenditure patterns of NPOs

The politics of development space: the state and NGOs in the delivery of basic services in Kenya

The centrality of the state in the development space of many Less Developed Countries (LDCs) has come under critical scrutiny because of its limited success in fostering adequate social, economic and political changes in the last three decades. Many blame the deepening development crisis and attendant decline in basic services on the inadequencies of the bloated state. The search for other institutional actors to supplement and/or compliment the raceding state services has focussed attention cn private non-governmental voluntary agencies (NGOs) This paper discusses both state and NGOs' roles and experiences in providing basic services. It concludes that the worldwide recession, domestic economic, and political problems, and general effects of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) have reduced the state's capacity to deliver-services. The result has been the intervention of NGOs. This intervention has been received with unease by the state, especially in recent years, due to what can be regarded as competition for legitimacy between the state and the sub-state ictors. The paper concludes that the state is likely to continue to be the senior partner in this competition

Inclusion and Integration of Youth Needs in Youth Empowerment Programmes: Nairobi and Trans Nzoia Counties

The youth bulge, a rapid population increase of the youth occasioned by reduced infant mortality without a corresponding decrease in fertility among women, has of late become a sore reality in Africa. It has triggered calls for concerted efforts from all development actors in the continent to ensure that youths are engaged in meaningful socio-economic and political advancement of their respective nations. In view of this, a myriad of state and non-state youth empowerment programmes (YEPs) have been developed in Kenya in the last two decades, even as concerns continue being raised on their efficacy and sustainability. The goal of this study was to explore the extent of youth inclusion, and integration of youth needs in YEPs in two counties, Nairobi, an urban setting, and Trans Nzoia, a rural setting. The study adopted a mixed method research approach.  First, a comparative survey of the youth was done in Nairobi and Trans Nzoia counties. The cross-sectional survey involved 244 youth respondents in the two counties, and was complemented by Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), key informant interviews and observation. The study established that youths who participate in YEPs are mainly engaged as groups and less often as individuals. In addition, youth inclusion in YEPs is generally wanting, with majority of them in both counties, 53.1% in Nairobi and 59.7% in Trans Nzoia, at least disagreeing that youth decide what programmes to be run in their respective areas. On integration of youth needs, the study found that the youth experience limitations in accessing finance and support from programme officers. The study recommends enhancement of avenues for youth engagement to facilitate efficacy in conceptualization and execution of YEPs in Kenya

Breakfast skipping is associated with cyberbullying and school bullying victimization:a school-based cross-sectional study

Breakfast skipping is a health concern that has well-known negative consequences physically and psychologically. It is therefore important to understand why children skip breakfast. The purpose of this study was to establish whether the experience of bullying and cyberbullying impacts upon breakfast skipping and to further evaluate whether the inability for youths to cope with bullying victimization affects their mental health (depression), and in turn predicts breakfast skipping. Data were obtained from the Eastern Ontario 2011 Youth Risk Behaviour Survey, a cross-sectional regional school-based survey of middle and high school students (11-20 years old) across the five counties of Eastern Ontario, Canada (N = 3035). Self-reported data about children's experiences of bullying victimization, breakfast eating habits, socio-economical status, depression, and other risk behaviours were analysed. Approximately half of the participants (50.4%) reported not eating breakfast on a regular basis: 26.3% and 24.1% reported often (usually eat breakfast three times or more per week) and frequent (usually eat breakfast twice a week or less) breakfast skipping behaviour, respectively. Victims of both cyberbullying and school bullying presented greater likelihood of often (adjusted relative risk ratio (RR) = 1.55; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.17-2.06) and frequent (RR = 1.97; 95% CI = 1.28-3.03) breakfast skipping. Mediation analysis further showed that depression fully mediated the relationship between school bullying victimization and frequent breakfast skipping. Moreover, depression partially mediated the associations between both cyberbullying and school bullying with frequent breakfast skipping. These findings highlight the potential interrelationships between cyberbullying, school bullying and depression in predicting unhealthy breakfast skipping behaviour in children. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd

Associations between meeting combinations of 24-h movement guidelines and health-related quality of life in children from 12 countries

OBJECTIVES: To examine whether meeting vs not meeting movement/non-movement guidelines (moderate-to-vigorous physical activity [MVPA], screen time, sleep duration), and combinations of these recommendations, are associated with health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in children from 12 countries in five major geographic regions of the world and explore whether the associations vary by study site.STUDY DESIGN: Observational, multinational cross-sectional study.METHODS: This study included 6106 children aged 9-11 years from sites in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Finland, India, Kenya, Portugal, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Participants completed the KIDSCREEN-10 to provide a global measure of their HRQoL. Sleep duration and MVPA were assessed using 24-h accelerometry. Screen time was assessed through self-report. Meeting the recommendations was defined as ≥60 min/day for MVPA, ≤2 h/day for screen time, and between 9 and 11 h/night for sleep duration. Age, sex, highest parental education, unhealthy diet pattern score, and body mass index z-score were included as covariates in statistical models.RESULTS: In the full sample, children meeting the screen time recommendation, the screen time + sleep recommendation, and all three recommendations had significantly better HRQoL than children not meeting any of these guidelines. Differences in HRQoL scores between sites were also found within combinations of movement/non-movement behaviors. For example, while children in Australia, Canada, and USA self-reported better HRQoL when meeting all three recommendations, children in Kenya and Portugal reported significantly lower HRQoL when meeting all three recommendations (relative to not meeting any).CONCLUSIONS: Self-reported HRQoL is generally higher when children meet established movement/non-movement recommendations. However, differences between study sites also suggest that interventions aimed at improving lifestyle behaviors and HRQoL should be locally and culturally adapted.</p

Green Grab by Bricolage - The Institutional Workings of Community Conservancies in Kenya

Across Kenya's arid and semi-arid lands, vast rangelands are being transformed into community conservancies – common property arrangements managed for transhumance pastoralism and biodiversity conservation. The Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) has spearheaded this transformation, promoting community conservancies as a model that conserves biodiversity while developing resilience, improving livelihoods, and promoting security among diverse pastoralist groups in Kenya. Building on recent critical engagement with the NRT model, this article reframes community conservancies as green grabs. In doing so, it makes two overarching contributions to wider debates. The first contribution complicates stereotypes about ‘grabbers’ and ‘grabbees’ and unsettles crude distinctions between political reactions to green grabs, social phenomena commonly portrayed as enacted from above and reacted to from below. Using the concept of bricolage, we show how actors at multiple scales with multiple identities participate – consciously and unconsciously – in reshaping institutional arrangements for managing communal lands and natural resources to align with conservation. The second contribution reveals how power works through emergent hybrid institutions, producing undesired and unintended outcomes. With this in mind, the article concludes that green grab by bricolage produces contradictory spaces animated by a seemingly adaptive, innovative, and progressive agenda, but constrained by historical patterns of access, accumulation, and domination

Investigating the differential effects of social networking site addiction and Internet gaming disorder on psychological health

Background and aims: Previous studies focused on examining the interrelationships between social networking site (SNS) addiction and Internet gaming disorder (IGD) in isolation. Moreover, little is known about the potential simultaneous differential effects of SNS addiction and IGD on psychological health. This study investigated the interplay between these two technological addictions and ascertained how they can uniquely and distinctively contribute to increasing psychiatric distress when accounting for potential effects stemming from sociodemographic and technology-related variables. Methods: A sample of 509 adolescents (53.5% males) aged 10–18 years (mean = 13.02, SD = 1.64) were recruited. Results: It was found that key demographic variables can play a distinct role in explaining SNS addiction and IGD. Furthermore, it was found that SNS addiction and IGD can augment the symptoms of each other, and simultaneously contribute to deterioration of overall psychological health in a similar fashion, further highlighting potentially common etiological and clinical course between these two phenomena. Finally, the detrimental effects of IGD on psychological health were found to be slightly more pronounced than those produced by SNS addiction, a finding that warrants additional scientific scrutiny. Discussion and conclusion: The implications of these results are further discussed in light of the existing evidence and debates regarding the status of technological addictions as primary and secondary disorders

Sleep patterns and sugar-sweetened beverage consumption among children from around the world

AbstractObjectiveTo examine the relationships between objectively measured sleep patterns (sleep duration, sleep efficiency and bedtime) and sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption (regular soft drinks, energy drinks, sports drinks and fruit juice) among children from all inhabited continents of the world.DesignMultinational, cross-sectional study.SettingThe International Study of Childhood Obesity, Lifestyle and the Environment (ISCOLE).SubjectsChildren (n 5873) 9–11 years of age.ResultsSleep duration was 12 min per night shorter in children who reported consuming regular soft drinks ‘at least once a day’ compared with those who reported consuming ‘never’ or ‘less than once a week’. Children were more likely to sleep the recommended 9–11 h/night if they reported lower regular soft drink consumption or higher sports drinks consumption. Children who reported consuming energy drinks ‘once a week or more’ reported a 25-min earlier bedtime than those who reported never consuming energy drinks. Children who reported consuming sports drinks ‘2–4 d a week or more’ also reported a 25-min earlier bedtime compared with those who reported never consuming sports drinks. The associations between sleep efficiency and SSB consumption were not significant. Similar associations between sleep patterns and SSB consumption were observed across all twelve study sites.ConclusionsShorter sleep duration was associated with higher intake of regular soft drinks, while earlier bedtimes were associated with lower intake of regular soft drinks and higher intake of energy drinks and sports drinks in this international study of children. Future work is needed to establish causality and to investigate underlying mechanisms.</jats:sec