Nuvoni Publications
KNeCS Strategy Modelling Report
This document details the modelling approaches and findings used to inform the interventions within the eCooking Strategy. It utilises data collected during the KNeCS Baseline Study (2023), and is designed to explore key research questions that have emerged during the strategy development process.
Nuvoni Research
Digital Hubs Proposal to ICTA
This proposal provides a comprehensive description of the form and design that digital hubs should adopt in Mathare informal settlement. The case is built following a critical analysis of the findings of the study on “Digital employment and training centres in informal in settlements’ piloted in Mathare.
Nuvoni Research
City-wide Co-creation Workshop Report
The Digital Hubs co-creation workshop was conducted on 18th June 2024 at the Golden Tulip Hotel in Westlands, Nairobi. It was hosted by Nuvoni Centre for Innovation Research (NCIR).
Nuvoni Research
Scaling digital hubs across informal settlements in Kenya: Social surveys and Co-creation
This policy paper offers a step-by-step approach to co-create digital hubs in informal settlements, gain trust in the process and adjust their governance and activities to the local context.
Nuvoni Research
Guideline to co-create digital hubs in informal settlements: lessons learned from international literature
This paper offers a literature review to describe the existing knowledge on digital hubs in informal settlements. It aims to offer a practical guide on how to co-create digital employment hubs, questioning what problems they address, what their objectives are, and what activities, and governance structures they employ.
Nuvoni Research
Our cities have failed … decolonizing urban planning in the Afrocentric
Africa is urbanizing at an unprecedented rate, presenting unique challenges in managing and planning for urban development. This article by Beatrice Hati Gitundu and Alice Menya emphasizes that continuing with conventional planning approaches, which have historically reproduced marginalization, is no longer tenable. It brings to the forefront the urgent need to rethink and reshape urban planning in an African context.
Nuvoni Research
Adaptive governance by community based organisations: Community resilience initiatives during Covid-19 in Mathare, Nairobi
This paper offers a literature review to describe the existing knowledge on digital hubs in informal settlements. It aims to offer a practical guide on how to co-create digital employment hubs, questioning what problems they address, what their objectives are, and what activities, and governance structures they employ.
Nuvoni Research
Frugal business model innovation in the Base of the Pyramid: The case of Philips Community Life Centres in Africa
This paper by Dr Elsie K. Onsongo, Prof. dr. Peter Knorringa and Prof. dr. Cees van Beers investigates how a multinational enterprise (MNE) engages in frugal business model innovation to find the optimal balance between value creation and value capture in resource-constrained contexts in sub-Saharan Africa. Using qualitative content analysis, they analyse the case of Community Life Centres (CLC), a primary healthcare innovation developed by Royal Philips N.V., a multinational technology organisation headquartered in The Netherlands.
Nuvoni Research
Electric cooking in Tanzania: an actor-network map and analysis of a nascent sociotechnical innovation system
This paper provides a first attempt to map several characteristics of Tanzania’s e-cooking socio-technical innovation system. The ‘map’ consists of visualisations of the actor-networks and actor-relations in the system along with elaborations on who the actors are, the extent and nature of their interactions, sketches of significant projects, and discussion of emerging issues relevant to the further development of the innovation system. It also includes some summary attention to the context and enabling environment of the e-cooking socio-technical innovation system.
Nuvoni Research
Of Monopolies and Mini-Grids: Case Studies from Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria and Senegal
This paper discusses in relation to four countries in sub-Saharan Africa: Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria and Senegal, in recent years new private sector actors in renewable energy mini grids have started to emerge, marking a shift away from large-scale diesel or hydro mini grids run by government utilities, and small-scale mini grid development previously led by bi-lateral donors and community organisations on a project-by-project basis. However, there have been considerable governance and regulatory challenges to the development and deployment of renewable energy mini grids at scale, which has often taken place in the absence of national regulation rather than because of it.
Nuvoni Research
Comparing frugality and inclusion in innovation for development: logic, process and outcome
his paper sheds light on two main concepts applied to innovation for development: frugal innovation and inclusive innovation. Researchers often conflate these concepts when classifying or characterizing innovative endeavours in developing contexts. We argue, however, that these concepts are fundamentally different based on their philosophical orientations or logics, i.e. frugality versus social inclusion, their respective innovation processes and outcomes.
Nuvoni Research
Electric cooking in Kenya: an actor-network map and analysis of a nascent socio-technical innovation system
This paper provides a first attempt to map several characteristics of Kenya’s e-cooking socio-technical innovation system. The ‘map’ consists of visualisations of the actor-networks and actor-relations in the system along with elaborations on who the actors are, the extent and nature of their interactions, sketches of significant projects, and discussion of emerging issues relevant to the further development of the innovation system. It also includes some summary attention to the context and enabling environment of the e-cooking socio-technical innovation system.
Nuvoni Research
Transforming Access to Clean Energy Technologies in the Global South: Learning from Lighting Africa in Kenya
The paper makes four contributions. First, it tests the extent to which the STIS-building concept is useful in understanding and conceptualising how Lighting Africa transformed the market for solar lanterns in Kenya from an estimated market size of 29,000 lamps in 2009 to one where 680,000 Lighting Africa certified lamps were sold in Kenya by the end of the Programme in 2013. Second, it presents the most in-depth analysis of Lighting Africa that we are aware of to date.
Nuvoni Research
Electric cooking in Rwanda: an actor-network map and analysis of a nascent socio-technical innovation system
This paper provides a first attempt to map several characteristics of Rwanda’s e-cooking STIS. The ‘map’ consists of visualisations of the actor-networks and actor-relations in the system along with elaborations on who the actors are, the extent and nature of their interactions, sketches of significant projects, and discussion of emerging issues relevant to the further development of the innovation system. It also includes some summary attention to the context and enabling environment of the e-cooking STIS.
Nuvoni Research
Are mini grids a solution to energy poverty? A case of mini-grids in Kenya.
The aim of our study was to interrogate the sustainability of mini grids in Kenya with a focus on their economic sustainability. We collect data using semi-structured interviews with households in 15 mini-grids across different geographical contexts in Kenya. We analyse energy use both for household and productive users, willingness to connect and willingness to pay for electricity, payment platforms and ease of access and use of these platforms, affordability, cost of electricity including that of connection, and interrogate the reliability of the electricity.
Nuvoni Research
Community vitality and frugal practices in informal settlements in Nairobi: Towards a typology
While community vitality is of increasing importance, it remains understudied. This study by Jan Fransen, Beatrice Hati, Rosebella Nyumba, Erwin van Tuijl explores community vitality in informal settlements by turning to the concept of frugal practices, defined as activities to develop and implement low-cost robust solutions that address communities’ needs within resource-constrained contexts. Based on literature and case study analysis in Nairobi, they define community vitality as dynamic relationships between residents and other local actors to cope with uncertainty and to meet community goals.
Nuvoni Research
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