Influence of personal attributes and demographic diversity on Nzoia basin negotiation outcomes

Abby Muricho Onencan*, Bert Enserink, Bartel Van de Walle

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)
215 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The Kenyan government has made significant advances in water resources management at the local authority (county) level with little or no cooperation at the drainage basin level. Research on critical determinants of cooperation amongst transboundary water negotiation teams is limited. In this paper, we assess whether personal attribute diversity (PAD) is a stronger factor than demographic diversity (gender, age, and education play) in determining whether the negotiation team will cooperate or make unilateral actions. We use a negotiation game to study decisions taken by water policymakers. After that, we conduct a multiple discriminant analysis (MDA) to assess the influence of PAD, gender, age, and education on water negotiation outcomes. The findings indicate that PAD plays a significant role in determining whether the group will cooperate or compete. Gender, education, and age barely influence the outcome. Only upon removal of the PAD variable do we see an increase in the discriminant power of gender and education. Age has minimal influence on the negotiation outcomes. We apply the research at a lower level of governance (Nzoia River Basin). However, results might be extrapolated to a bigger basin, like the Nile Basin, through future multiple level analysis which takes account of the complex socio-technical systems.

Original languageEnglish
Article number227
JournalWater (Switzerland)
Volume11
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019

Keywords

  • Cooperation
  • Demographic diversity (DD)
  • Multiple discriminant analysis (MDA)
  • Negotiation game
  • Negotiation teams
  • Nzoia River Basin
  • Personal attributes diversity (PAD)
  • Shared superordinate identity (SSI)
  • Unilateral actions
  • Water resources management

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