Methodology of Document Analysis

“Document analysis is a systematic procedure for reviewing or evaluating documents both printed and electronic (computer-based and internet transmitted) materials…it requires that data be examined and interpreted in order to elicit meaning, gain understanding and develop empirical knowledge.” (Bowen, 2009, p. 27). Document analysis helps one to gain insight into a certain approach and enables the researcher to recognize patterns that might have been unrecognized or overlooked (Uni. of Texas, Document Analysis, 2015). Data analysis provides a wealth of information, these documents provide a means of tracking change and development. These research methods often combined with other qualitative research methods as a means of triangulation – the amalgamation of methodologies in the study of the same phenomenon (Bowen, 2009, p. 28).

The following are the advantages and disadvantages of document analysis as regarded to by Bowen (2009). Document analysis has been viewed as an efficient way to research because of its time-saving qualities, thus causing it to be more efficient. Documents are usually very

26 easily accessible, mostly because they are in the public domain. The dawn of the internet brought along this added advantage. Along with cost effectiveness, this is due to the reduced amount of resources needed to gather data, when the data (contained in documents) has previously been gathered, the remainder is to gather knowledge and evaluation of this knowledge. Documents provide exact references and details of events which are happening or have already passed. The coverage also provided is broad due to the long-time span, many various settings and events. Some disadvantages expressed include the insufficient details that may be provided by these documents, this may allow room for ambiguous guesses because the documents being used for research were created for other purposes independent of the researches agenda. On top of that the data provided by these documents may have a biased view or selectivity. This incomplete collection of documents is maybe due to the partial release of documents by organizations. All in all, the data collected and obtained from these documents encourage the elevation of questions and situations that need to be considered and probed upon.

As per Bowen (2009, p. 29), there are four methods which document analysis has been used.

The first function is through data collection such as in the cases of historical events. These provide background data for the researcher like in contextualizing the data collected during an interview. The second function is the formation of research questions, while analysing these documents, questions come up that may need to be answered thus prompting the researcher to develop research questions that need answering for example during interviews.

The third function is providing additional data to the interviews and observations being conducted by the researcher. The fourth function is the documents are used for the purposes of tracking the changes and development that have happened over a certain period. Periodic and final reports are usually the documents analysed under this function. Lastly, the fifth function is the use of the documents to verify findings as a means of evidence, that is accompanied by other data that has been collected. It supplements data that needs further investigations.

The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has been making reviews of food and agricultural policies in multiple countries in Africa under MAFAF Monitoring African Food and Agricultural Policies. Their aim it to see the effectiveness of these policies within these countries. For the purpose of this thesis, I shall focus on the reviews conducted nearby to Kenya as well as Kenya itself. Reviews of food and agricultural policies have been conducted in Uganda, Malawi and Tanzania. These reports mainly concentrate on the

27 commodity markets in these regions, incentives and how the producers and exporters of major commodities are affected. In the review for Kenya’s food and agricultural policies, one of the findings was that the budget going to agriculture and rural development has increased by 12%. “Rural development expenditure was almost equally distributed among rural education, health and infrastructure, with water and sanitation accounting for a much larger share than energy and roads.” (FAO, 2013). The World Food Programme (WFP) performed a research of Yemen’s food security and vulnerability. Their reason for using data analysis was to identify the gaps within the secondary information that can be filled by primary data. They mainly were faced with the challenge of irrelevant and not up-to-date secondary data that would leave room for unanswered gaps. The research concluded that in order to have ample research data that they would need to accompany the secondary data with primary data, which the Government of Yemen and donor agencies had already been providing through assessments conducted. Qualitative data and quantitative data complement each other while also providing various types of varied data (Forche, 2009, p.

91).

In conclusion, policy cycle, policy evaluation and analysis and document analysis have previously been used in previous works throughout the field of food studies. The World Health Organization (WHO) has conducted a report on the Comparative analysis of food and nutrition policies in WHO European Member States, the report aimed to collect the data from WHO European members and their development in sound food and nutrition policies.

This study was done to see how the region had developed in their policies related to food and nutrition as well as the emerging trends of the region. The report concluded that countries that had previously established national food and nutrition coordination bodies were the most effective because with the advice of these bodies, they manage to improve their policies and processes. It continued to state that food related issues are an interdisciplinary science and would require a holistic view to solve the issues arising from it. A few recommendations made in the report was to advice other members of WHO to create an advisory body that will advise policy makers, the advisory body should have guidelines established for the monitoring and evaluation of the policies created. The WHO has been conducting such report on food and nutrition reviews since the 1990s mainly through the analysis of questionnaires.

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