Climate change continues to affect the availability and quantity of water needed for food production globally. Due to this, authorities have increasingly advocated for the adoption of water‐saving practices and technologies such as drip irrigation systems to increase food production as well as efficiently conserve dwindling water resources. Such technologies promise efficiency but pose adoption challenges, especially to farmers as they transition from either rainfed agriculture or other less efficient irrigation technologies. This paper investigated the challenges associated with the adoption of drip irrigation with a focus on the Kenyan context. We employ insights from the sociotechnical systems approach that take into account technology elements such as infrastructures, rationale and meaning, organizational modes, social interactions, and time and space in relation to farmers’ capabilities to transition. The paper elucidates new capabilities that policy should take into account that smallholder farmers require to transition toward drip irrigation technology consequently improving their yields. Relevant and recently published scholarly articles and grey literature, formed the database and were reviewed and qualitatively analyzed. To complement these, eight key informants were consulted. Insights gathered are relevant to practitioners within the drip irrigation field and the method is potentially useful for analysis of other agricultural technology systems.
Submit Manuscript | http://medcraveonline.com towns are also experiencing perennial water rationing due to the low efficiency of the water utilities supplying the water to the consumers. This inefficiency consequently reflects in increased non-revenue water (NRW) levels. NRW is known to be a big determinant of the sustainability of any given water utility and hence high NRWs reflect low efficiency and low creditworthiness index. 1 Figure 1 Targets for non-revenue water by Nairobi City water and sewerage company as compared to the actual performance for previous years. 4 Int J Hydro. 2018;2(3):300-301.300
Not all the challenges of informal settlement upgrading programmes can be anticipated from the start. It calls for cumulative learning within the programme’s timeline. This paper investigates the role of organizational learning in influencing programme outcomes. The analysis of the Kenya Informal Settlement Improvement Programme (KISIP) shows that a lack of organizational learning routines can lead to reduced programme success, and that programme learning can improve programme outcomes. Well-conceptualized processes that include participation, coordination, communication and the synthesis of information are essential, though insufficient alone. Additional barriers, including a sudden increase in the number and diversity of actors and projects, their deteriorating commitment, inequitable incentives and inadequate tools to support programme learning, can further exacerbate the absence of established programme learning routines. There is a need for explicit and transparent programme learning procedures across organizational levels in order to improve overall programme success.
The role of infrastructure in transforming livelihoods is crucial, especially in the global south where over a billion live in conditions without basic service infrastructure for water, sanitation, mobility, solid waste and lighting popularly known as slums. Most such initiatives deliver infrastructures that often fail to improve livelihoods and that even deteriorate a few years later. I investigated how programs aimed at providing such infrastructures can improve slum residents’ livelihoods. To facilitate the investigation, I collected data from 16 slums in Kenya, which were part of the Kenya Informal Settlement Improvement Program that installed new basic service infrastructure in 80 slums.
Findings indicated that new infrastructure disrupts or improves the following four dimensions to secure basic services and livelihoods: when residents conduct activities, how they use space, organize around provision and access, and pay. Residents take up such infrastructures critically or complementarily based on whether or not trust is broken during participation, transforming them to fit their needs and maintaining them in cases where the infrastructure has a net value to their livelihoods. In addition, only actors oriented to market thinking e.g. contractors, professionalism e.g., engineers and the community need be collaborative during participation to deliver infrastructure that benefits livelihoods. Lastly, failure to integrate insights about challenges in different slums by different actors to facilitate program learning leads to missed opportunities for improving livelihoods at city and national scales.
For infrastructures to improve livelihoods, implementers need to ensure participation retains trust and anticipates post implementation infrastructure appropriation to improve livelihoods, understand and improve capabilities of different actors to involve residents, and plan for and finance program learning. Doing this will ensure sustained infrastructures that improve residents’ livelihoods in the long term.
The consistent use of household water treatment and storage (HWTS) technologies is necessary for human health. However, most HWTS options are designed for typical household use as opposed to emergency contexts, where use is less consistent. To investigate ways to improve the consistency of HWTS use in emergencies, we conducted in-person surveys with 108 households in northern Kenya and comparatively analyzed factors that influenced the use of household filters during a protracted drought. Findings showed that about 50% of respondents used their filter consistently over the course of the study. The main limitation to usability was that none of the filters were well-suited for the indoor living environment of the survey respondents. The factors associated with consistency of use varied by filter design. For one-bucket filters, consistent use was associated with ease of assembly, reported availability of spare parts, and peer approval of HWTS use. For two-bucket filters, consistent use was best explained by the certainty regarding when the filter was functioning or not. We suggest that filter manufacturers should reduce the number of parts to mitigate assembly difficulties and should develop flexible filter designs to improve compatibility across households in terms of space and height requirements. Those disseminating filters during protracted emergencies should conduct user training on the assembly and disassembly of unfamiliar filters and ensure affordable access to necessary replacement parts. Finally, to improve consistency of use of new types of filters, implementers should assess the peer approval of these HTWS options among the target population.
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