Read on Twitter
Data is about 3 months old, though we're working hard to take a snapshot of current data but overall, the informal market women vending perishable fresh produce like green leafy veg; tomatoes, even shelf stable onions, have taken the biggest hits in urban informal food system. 1/
Green leafy veg wholesalers slashed their purchases by as much as 93% during lockdown in Nairobi, and had to stop buying from farmers who couldn't get their produce into the city, instead sourcing from intermediary suppliers. 2/
Of 35 actors in three fresh produce chains (tomatoes, sukumawiki, onions) the vast majority (29) were forced to slash their investments in new inventory by at least 60%. Both wholesale & retail also halved the frequency of purchase, which means both time & money were affected. 3/
Luckily at the time of sampling (July-August 2020) no other costs such as rent, transport, garbage collection etc changed. Quality of vegetables fell; prices rose; purchasing power fell; days without sales rose; Monday is the worst day for vegetable vendors in Nairobi slums. 4/
If you are buying half the inventory you purchased daily every two days, it means you're selling only a quarter of what you were before Covid pandemic shock. 5/
This implies a hit of 75% to purchasing power in the informal settlements given that we're looking at daily needs like greens and onions and tomatoes, not discretionary purchases like talcum powder. 6/
https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/business/pandemic-pushes-2-million-kenyans-into-poverty-3216566
The most frequently seen coping mechanism has been juggling the frequency & periodicity of the inventory purchase as well as amount purchased. That is, people are juggling Time & Money in order to keep afloat during "B" period of economic volatility curve. https://twitter.com/niti_bhan/status/1250052113595539460
Mama Mbogas - B2C retailers of fresh veg - work 7 days a week, though some take Sundays off. They see weekly patterns where weekends are the best for sales, while Mon & Tues are bad. School holidays when kids are home are also good times ;p https://twitter.com/niti_bhan/status/1250052672830537728
Below I was hypothesizing, now I can tell you she will ask for a small loan from her social circle or approach her chama if she is a member. https://twitter.com/niti_bhan/status/1250053808094314501
Big surprise of our participant pool of 48 people (12 are in fruits so not currently in mama mboga/mboga pool) is that NOBODY mentioned mobile loans or fuliza as a means to cope with a sudden cash shortage. NO loans. No mobile. https://twitter.com/niti_bhan/status/1250054230062379009
Here, we've long gone past Status A and are deep into Status B https://twitter.com/niti_bhan/status/1250055049730023427 How it has affected the rest of the informal economic ecosystem is as yet unclear - unless y'all know other data being collected on industrial area jobs and whatnot? Is joblessness still rife?
// touch wood if all goes well, I should have a snapshot of December conditions to look at in January.
Then we should have a better idea of the actual impact on the fabric of the mesh/web that is the internetworked informal economic ecosystem and how well can it recover its supply chains and systems after the "B" of corona & 2020 https://twitter.com/niti_bhan/status/1250057472443908099
Its not ideal, but the silver lining (at least until Sept 2020) is that the informal urban food system in fresh veg sector has managed to live frugally; sending kids home to shamba if there's one; and not fallen out of the economy all together. https://twitter.com/niti_bhan/status/1250058392904896513
Informal sectors, especially urban (the air is fresh in rural ;p) have never gone through an extended period of D - stretched to the limit - as they have this year - unless we have any kind of data from conflict regions on local/informal trade conditions? https://twitter.com/niti_bhan/status/1250059114992013318
"The economy is only working for the few patrimonial elites." ~ Tony Watima https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/opinion-analysis/columnists/why-kenya-economic-power-is-waning-3214628
This is only 10% of total data available on the challenges, the barriers, the experience, & the issues - most of that is in video format in Swahili and will take time to transcribe and translate. But we have a worm's eye view of the pandemic shock on the most vulnerable Kenyans.
