Abstract

Smoke from open fires and traditional cook stoves fires have been a silent killer in developing countries for a very long time. There are important signs that the sector is a tipping point strategy to develop a thriving market for clean cook stoves and fuels. More training is needed to maximize these opportunities and transform the sector (Hamilton & Akbar, 2010). The use of modern cook stoves is considered a luxury in the developing world. Nearly three billion people across the developing world still cook their food the way it has been for thousands of years-over open flame or crude cook stoves. These stoves use solid fuels like wood, coal crop residues and animal dung. In sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, the lack of access to clean cooking fuels, is the reason why the vast majority of the rural poor use these solid fuels to cook over open fires or inefficient cook stoves (Legros & Organization, 2009). In many African countries especially in the rural areas the rate of usage is 80% to 90% .The Energy agency estimates that by 2030, one hundred million more people will use traditional biomass fuels than do so today. Even where there is access to electricity or LPG gas, primarily in urban areas, the use of solid fuels for cooking persists due to cost and cultural factors (Birol, 2010).

This research focuses on strategic planning practices at the Teacher Service Commission (TSC) of Kenya. Strategic planning has been viewed as a systematic process of envisioning a desired future and translating this vision into broadly defined goals or objectives and a sequence of steps to achieve them. Strategic planning is a means to an end, a method used to position an organization through prioritizing its use of resources according to identified goals in an effort to guide its direction and development over a period of time. Strategic planning practices have been adopted by many other institutions including State Corporations. The main interests of the study was to determine strategic planning practices in TSC through evaluating the factors that influence strategic planning practices in TSC establishing its efficiency, and determining the challenges that are associated with it. The researcher used an interview guide as the preferred data collection instrument. The interview guide was used to collect data through open-ended questions to the managers. Data was analyzed using context analysis. The findings of the study indicated that strategic planning practices at TSC composed of strategic themes that broadly outline the objectives and strategic initiating that outline action plans. It was found out that there are both internal and external factors that influence strategic planning practices at TSC. The organization ensures that their plans are in line with the strategic plan by use of the monitoring and evaluation tool.

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There is consensus that diversification results in risk reduction. However there is no consensus on the number of securities required for maximum risk diversification. Studies done on different capital markets have yielded differing results. This study aimed to determine the optimal portfolio size for investors on the Nairobi Securities Exchange in Kenya. The study used mean variance optimization model and secondary data consisting of monthly security returns over a five year period from January 2009 to December 2013. Forty three of the sixty listed firms had complete information on monthly security returns and were used in the study. Portfolios of different sizes were formed by random selection of securities. The study found that portfolio risk reduced as the number of securities in the portfolio increased and that the optimal portfolio size in the Nairobi Securities Exchange was between 18 and 22 securities.

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