Factors Influencing Effective Community Participation in Water Projects: A Survey of Water Mission Funded Projects in West Pokot County-Kenya

The purpose of the study was to investigate the factors influencing effective community participation on water project. The study was guided by The following objective; to establish the effect of socio-economic factors on effective community participation The study was guided by community participation theory. The study employed a descriptive survey research design. The target population for the study included management committee and the local community members.The sample size for the study comprised of 164 community members and eighteen management committee members. The study used stratified random sampling technique and purposive sampling. Data was collected using semi-structured questionnaires and interview schedule. Data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences. It is assumed that the findings of the study would significantly contribute towards rural development by acting as a benchmark for identifying loopholes and corrective measures at policy level on water projects to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of provision of safe and clean water to all by the year 2030. The study findings indicated that socio-economic factors influenced effective community participation of funded water projects in West Pokot.The study findings showed that a significant number of the respondents 57.8 percent agreed thatlanguage barrier during project discussion forums hindered effective community participation, 63.8 percent agreed that nomadism among the Pokots affected effective community participation, 61.8 percent agreed that education level of the community members determined the level of community participation, 74.4 percent agreed that there was proper and effective community leadership that promoted community participation, 71.0 percent agreed that majority of the active community members were economically challenged and 85.8 percent agreed that water project had positively transformed health, water and sanitation practices in the region while 81.8 percent agreed that the level of community awareness on the importance of water projects influenced effective community participation. Results from testing the hypothesis indicated that p-value of 0.000and the null hypothesis was rejected. Pearson Correlation coefficient (r-value) is 0.544, which represented a positive but average relationship between socio-economic factors and effective community participation. Therefore, the study concluded that socio-economic factors had a significant effect on effective community participation in water funded projects in West Pokot.The study found out socio-economic Keywords: Community Participation, Socio-economic factors

Transient expression of ß-glucuronidase in recalcitrant Ugandan sweetpotato and putative transformation with two cry genes.

Sweetpotato (Ipomoea batatas Lam.) has high potential to contain hunger, malnutrition and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), since it gives early yield with few inputs. However, productivity of the crop in Africa is very low due to various challenges, such as severe viral diseases and increasing attacks by sweetpotato weevils, Cylas puncticollis and C. brunneus. Effective resistance to weevils has not been identified in the sweetpotato gene pool. On the other hand, the weevil-resistance genes, cry7Aa1 and cry3Ca1 were assembled into a plasmid vector for use in genetic transformation of African sweetpotato cultivars. The parameters for efficient transfer of these genes and the conditions for de novo regeneration optimised in preliminary studies were used in the genetic transformation of Ugandan landrace ‘Kyebandula’ with Agrobacterium tumefaciens EHA 105 harbouring the plasmid pCIP84, which contains cry7Aa1, cry3Ca1 and nptII in its T-DNA. Fifty-four percent of the explants formed adventitious buds. With a mean of 7 buds formed per explant, 6.0% explants formed shoots with a mean of one shoot per explant for those explants that formed shoots on medium containing 50 mg L-1 kanamycin as a selection agent. PCR analysis using primers for cry7Aa1 showed that the transformation efficiency could be as high as 2%. These data highlight the potential of genetic transformation in transferring resistance genes and pave way for enhancement of food security through production of adapted sweetpotato weevil resistant cultivars.Key Words: Agrobacterium tumefaciens, b-glucuronidase, Ipomoea batata

Sweet potato development and delivery in sub-Saharan Africa

n sub-Saharan Africa, more than 40% of children under five years of age suffer from vitamin A deficiency. Among several interventions in place to address vitamin A deficiency is biofortification, breeding vitamin A into key staple crops. Staple crops biofortified with beta-carotene, the precursor to vitamin A, are orange in color. Given the natural occurrence of high levels of beta-carotene in many sweet potato varieties, breeding progress for biofortified orange sweet potato (OSP) has been much faster than for the other vitamin A enhanced staples. Nearly 3 million households have been reached with OSP. This paper reviews key factors influencing the uptake of OSP, the breeding investment, five key delivery approaches that have been tested in the region and efforts to broaden government and other stakeholder engagement