Mary Njeri Kinyanjui

Mary Njeri Kinyanjui was visiting research fellow at UNRISD and most recently collaborated on the project Social Dimensions of Green Economy and Sustainable Development (2011-12) for which she wrote a think piece.
During her visiting fellowship, she reviewed empirical databases and literature as well as reflected on her past research on informal enterprise, peasant organizations, and women's social networks with the aim of developing a conceptual paper entitled “Towards a model for integrating emergent social institutions in social policy.”

Mary holds a PhD in Economic Geography from the University of Cambridge, UK, At the time of her association and collaboration with UNRISD, she was a senior research fellow at the Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi, Kenya. Prior to the fellowship at UNRISD she spent three months at the International Development Centre, Open University, UK where she developed a working paper entitled “Informal enterprise is the path to urban dynamism.”

Her main research interests are the social and spatial features, relations and institutions involving micro and small enterprise (known locally as jua kali). She has taught graduate level courses in industrial strategies and education and development.

Selected Publications

(2008) “From Home to Jua Kali Enterprise Spaces: Entrepreneurship and Female Gender Identities” The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Vol. 5, Nos. 3 and 4.

(2007) “Emerging Production Systems in Conventional Development: Experiences of the Jua Kali Economy in Kenya,” Umoja Bulletin of African and African-American Studies Program, Grand Valley State University, Vol.2

Co-Authored with Paul Kuria Kamau, (2007), “Production and Trade Systems,” Chapter Five in P: Alila, D. McCormick, et al., (eds) African Business Systems, University of Nairobi Press.

Co-Authored with Dorothy McCormick, (2007) ‘Industrializing Kenya: Building the Productive Capacity of Micro and Small Enterprise Clusters’, in D. McCormick, and Banji Oyeyinka (eds) The African Cluster: Pattern, Practice, and Policies for Upgrading Clusters, Maastricht: UNU-INTECH.

Co-Authored with Meleckidzedeck Khayesi (2005), Social Capital, Micro and Small Enterprise and Poverty Alleviation. Addis Ababa: OSSREA.

(2002) “Peasant Organisations in the Development Process: Opportunities and Constraints”, in Romdhame, Mahmoud Ben and Moyo, Sam. (eds) Peasant Organisations and the Democratisation Process in Africa, Dakar: CODESRIA, pp 293-313.