Developing Country Consultants

Currently engaged in evaluating the 2017 elections in Kenya from January 2016 through to the present which includes leadership and candidate selection, primaries, party strategies, campaigns and final results. 19.6 million voters have been registered and the turnout on election day August 8th, 2017 appears to be around 60 per cent. The presidential election is a re-match of 2013 pitting Uhuru Kenyatta against Raila Odinga. With devolution, the races for Governor represent fascinating battles.

A recent article on agricultural development in Rwanda which appeared in the journal World Development, Volume 78 (c) 2016, pp. 204-218 by N. Dawson, A. Martin and T. Sikor sought to identify the various socio-economic groups in rural society using a mixed methods approach. In the end, four group characteristics were utilized by the authors - land size, livestock ownership, occupations and housing. Identifying social strata in rural Rwanda is now called "disaggregation". Classic!! Any experienced field research or extension officer can tell you that in differentiating smallholder farmers, early indicators are farm size and housing, the latter an easy way to tell the state of a household's status in rural society. Also, another indicator of differentiation can be school attendance of a family's children or young children engaged in farm labour either on the home farm or farms of the wealthy.