The contributions of community based volunteer workforce towards the millennium development goals in Nyando District, Kenya

This paper presents results of a study on the contribution of CBVs to efforts towards the MDGs in Western Kenya. The study was cross sectional, descriptive and exploratory in design. Objective of the study was to describe the contribution of volunteers in services relevant to the achievement of the MDGs. Services rendered by volunteers were relevant to MDGs 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Majority of volunteers spent 6-10 hours in a week offering voluntary services. This is equivalent to $20 per person per month, for 40 volunteers serving 5,000 people. They contribute USD 9,600 per year, which is 4$170,000 the population at recommended $34 per capita per year. Majority of volunteers (70%) had served for more than five years, indicating a reasonable retention rate. Due to the budgetary strains and human resource crisis, volunteerism presents an alternative of providing services Keywords: Volunteers, Contributions, Millennium Development Goals, Communit

Effect of education and gender on household ownership of asset types in rural Western Kenya Region

Asset development is a key strategy to promote economic and social development. Measurement of inequality has been given relatively little attention to the asset ownership by households. The study examines relative importance of asset types and extent to which household headship factors affect ownership among households of Western Kenya. The study was cross sectional descriptive using quantitative methods. A total of 538 households were selected for the study comprising 184(34%) households with under-five death and 355(66%) as controls. Findings show that the extent to which asset types demonstrate significant differential inequality in ownership (p-value <0.05) varies by household headship factors, where gender clustered by education shows the highest number of asset types exhibiting significant inequality 17(50%) between households; followed by education 7(21%) and lastly gender 4(12%). Results underscore importance of high education, although the impact is different across the different genders.The impact is greater among the male headed households Key Words: Rural households, asset types, asset ownership, household headship, education, gender

Economic impact of HIV/AIDS on rural households in Suba Distict, Kenya.

Poor rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa have been affected most by HIV/AIDS pandemic. This paper analyzed the socio-economic impacts of HIV and AIDS on rural households, at different stages of disease progression, to determine economic impact of HIV/AIDS.  The study was quasi-longitudinal assessing the impact of HIV and AIDS on economic status in Suba District. The study population were PLWHA who were registered for care at the local Health Centre. A sample of 200 HIV+ cases was randomly selected from patient support register.The findings showed that there was shortage of labor at household level due to drop out from work, and selling of assets in affected households as the disease progressed to more severe stages. Depletion of assets and savings to cope with increased expenditures in medical costs, food intake requirement as well as funeral costs was high in households with advanced stages of the disease. Key words: HIV, AIDS, stages, progressive, impac