Local bureaucrats as bricoleurs. The everyday implementation practices of county environment officers in rural Kenya

Funder, Mikkel; Marani, Martin

doi:10.18352/ijc.526

Cited by 40 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…This situation is not isolated to tobacco control. Funder and Marani (2015) studied how Environmental Officers navigated the implementation of the Environmental Act in one county in Kenya. One prominent finding was that these officers operated with broad 'discretion and interpretation of the law .…”

Section: Impacts Of Kenya's New Constitutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…. to find pragmatic solutions to the practical problem of limited budgets, time and operational scope' in part because 'few specific regulations exist and as the act itself is quite broad and of a cross-sectorial nature, its scope and practical implications is in many cases open to interpretation' (Funder and Marani 2015). This context seems to mirror the institutional context of tobacco control.…”

Section: Impacts Of Kenya's New Constitutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Navigating institutional complexity in the health sector: lessons from tobacco control in Kenya

Lencucha

Magati²,

Drope

2016

Health Policy Plan.

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Introduction This research examines the institutional dynamics of tobacco control following the establishment of Kenya's 2007 landmark tobacco control legislation. Our analysis focuses specifically on coordination challenges within the health sector. Methods We conducted semi-structured interviews with key informants (n ¼ 17) involved in tobacco regulation and control in Kenya. We recruited participants from different offices and sectors of government and non-governmental organizations. Results We find that the main challenges toward successful implementation of tobacco control are a lack of coordination and clarity of mandate of the principal institutions involved in tobacco control efforts. In a related development, the passage of a new constitution in 2010 created structural changes that have affected the successful implementation of the country's tobacco control legislation. Discussion We discuss how proponents of tobacco control navigated these two overarching institutional challenges. These findings point to the institutional factors that influence policy implementation extending beyond the traditional focus on the dynamic between government and the tobacco industry. These findings specifically point to the intragovernmental challenges that bear on policy implementation. The findings suggest that for effective implementation of tobacco control legislation and regulation, there is need for increased cooperation among institutions charged with tobacco control, particularly within or involving the Ministry of Health. Decisive leadership was also widely presented as a component of successful institutional reform. Conclusion This study points to the importance of coordinating policy development and implementation across levels of government and the need for leadership and clear mandates to guide cooperation within the health sector. The Kenyan experience offers useful lessons in the pitfalls of institutional incoherence, but more importantly, the value of investing in and then promoting well-functioning institutions.

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Section: Impacts Of Kenya's New Constitutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Impacts Of Kenya's New Constitutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Navigating institutional complexity in the health sector: lessons from tobacco control in Kenya

Lencucha

Magati²,

Drope

2016

Health Policy Plan.

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“…We acknowledge that policy making is a highly dynamic process and at any point in time several (overlapping) policy networks may exist at different spatial levels (see also Funder and Marani 2015). These policy networks might have different normative views and aim to pursue different interests within the same policy domain and as such compete for authority.…”

Section: Theoretical Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Only water use rights from springs, dams and boreholes can be acquired on individual basis by small-scale users in contrast to large-scale users, whose individual applications of river abstractions will be considered for recommendation to the WRMA. Even though it was not in the formal policies, the Ministry of Water supported the initiative as according to a Ministry official: "it is easier to administer water rights through groups than dealing with these individual small-scale water users directly" (Interview S5, 2010, see also Funder and Marani 2015). Since the introduction of the required recommendation by the WRUAs in 2007, the Likii WRUA has recommended four abstractions from springs and two from boreholes.…”

Section: Unfolding the Policy Model In Likii Catchmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why infrastructure still matters: unravelling water reform processes in an uneven waterscape in rural Kenya

et al. 2016

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Abstract:Since the 1980s, a major change took place in public policies for water resources management. Whereas before governments primarily invested in the development, operation and maintenance of water infrastructure and were 1056Jeltsje Sanne Kemerink et al.mainly concerned with the distribution of water, in the new approach they mainly focus on managing water resources systems by stipulating general frameworks for water allocation. This paper studies the rationales used to justify the water reform process in Kenya and discusses how and to what extent these rationales apply to different groups of water users within Likii catchment in the central part of the country. Adopting a critical institutionalist's perspective, this paper shows how the water resource configurations in the catchment are constituted by the interplay between a normative policy model introduced in a plural institutional context and the disparate infrastructural options available to water users as result of historically produced uneven social relations. We argue that, to progressively redress the colonial legacy, direct investments in infrastructure for marginalized water users and targeting the actual (re)distribution of water to the users might be more effective than focusing exclusively on institutional reforms. Keywords: Infrastructure, institutions, irrigation, water reformsAcknowledgement: The work presented in this paper was funded by DGIS, UNESCO-IHE and the Geneva Water Hub. Implementation on site was assisted by WRMA, Ewaso Ngíro North Catchment Area Office. We thank the interviewees for sharing their knowledge and opinions with us. Our special gratitude goes to the chairperson of Likii WRUA for facilitating the research process.

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“…On the other hand, from a CI perspective, Cleaver and de Koning (2015: 12) ask ,"in embracing plurality and complexity, how can we produce analyses of complex and dynamic institutional processes which are broadly legible to policy and public decision making?" Thus drawing eclectically on the different approaches could both enrich our understanding of the trajectories in resource governance and provide analyses that are more constructive and transformational (Jones 2015;Ingram et al 2015;Marin and Bjorkland 2015;Funder and Marani 2015;Verzijl and Dominguez 2015).…”

Section: Theoretical Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Collective management of natural resources in a vulnerable environment: case studies from coastal Bangladesh

Afroz¹

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Three-quarters of the poorest households in the world live in rural areas and are dependent on shared access to natural resources for their food security and livelihoods.However, certain features of these natural resources make their management problematic, especially the high degree of interdependence among resource users, creating incentives to overuse resources and underinvest in their sustainability. Hence, much research has focused on the role of collective management of natural resources in supporting sustainable rural livelihoods. This focus has also influenced the design of rural development and conservation programs, assuming that local people who use and rely on natural resources are in the best position to manage them. Yet interventions to promote collective management of natural resources have often failed due to excessively top-down, prescriptive approaches that ignore local institutional contexts. Hence there is a need to understand better the processes of local collective action.These issues are especially relevant in Bangladesh's coastal zone, where pressure on land, water, and other natural resources is intense and increasing. The coastal zone plays an important economic role through crop production and aquaculture, and supports the environmentally-significant Sundarban mangrove forest. Yet it is also highly vulnerable, facing problems of salinization, waterlogging, flooding, riverine erosion, erratic rainfall, sealevel rise, and cyclone-related disasters. Development interventions in this zone have also had mixed consequences. The complex, interrelated nature of land, water, fisheries, forests, and infrastructure, the high degree of interdependence between resource users, and the shared exposure to natural hazards and climate trends mean that local processes of collective action play a crucial role in sustaining lives and livelihoods.The aim of this research was to explore the nature and role of local collective action in managing natural resources and enhancing the livelihood security of rural households and communities in coastal Bangladesh. A version of the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) Framework was used. This provides a general set of interrelated variables to systematically examine a diversity of cases, while allowing for different theoretical explanations in each case. The elements of the Framework are: (1) contextual factors (attributes of resources, attributes of resource users, and governance arrangements); (2) the action arena or "action situation", in which various actors, using their assets and governed by "rules in use", engage in patterns of interaction to pursue their goals; (3) the outcomes of this interaction for (a) resource status and trends, (b) ii livelihood assets and adaptive capacity, and (c) institutional arrangements and governance. The Framework can be applied to different scales and time-frames, encompassing both one-off local episodes of collective action and repeated, long-term interactions leading to institutional change.A qualitative, c...

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Local bureaucrats as bricoleurs. The everyday implementation practices of county environment officers in rural Kenya

Cited by 40 publications

References 31 publications

Navigating institutional complexity in the health sector: lessons from tobacco control in Kenya

Navigating institutional complexity in the health sector: lessons from tobacco control in Kenya

Why infrastructure still matters: unravelling water reform processes in an uneven waterscape in rural Kenya

Collective management of natural resources in a vulnerable environment: case studies from coastal Bangladesh

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