Feeding Nairobi’s urban poor in times of Covid-19 pandemic
— Urgency for safe, transparent and equitable food distribution strategies
“Some people in the neighbourhood have stocked food donations in their houses like a supermarket. It’s very unfair when some of us who are more deserving get nothing”.
These were the sentiments of Mildred, a mother of eight and a resident of Kangemi slums of Nairobi who spent over three hours at the local administration’s camp in the hope of getting food donations. This was the first week of April 2020. The queue was long and squeezed. At some point, the food got finished and the security personnel overseeing the distribution threw tear-gas to disperse the adamant crowd. Mildred and her neighbours scampered for safety.
A similar but more gruesome scenario occurred the following week, at Kibra slums where residents had gone to collect donations offered by Orange Democratic Party (ODM) leader Raila Odinga. They shoved and reeled in the hope of getting the donations which included both food and non-food stuff. Several were seriously injured in a stampede that marked the event. Many returned home empty-handed.
These scenarios depict poor planning, intransparency in distribution of donations and a gross breach of one of the key measures to control spread of Covid-19 — social distancing. There is urgency to rethink how donations for vulnerable urban populations are delivered.
The Covid-19 pandemic has mostly affected the poor residents of informal urban settlements. Many depend on daily wages and have no job security. Closure of hospitality establishments, stay home directives, low business in horticultural and tourism sectors and dawn to dusk curfew have resulted in gross loss of livelihoods for this vulnerable segment of society.
With jobs gone, these residents are having difficulties feeding their families. In addition, they cannot afford many of the health items that the government is recommending — washing hands with flowing water, hand sanitisers and masks.
Locally, the private sector led by Amref, Kenya Red Cross Society, the UN SDG partnership platform, Kenya Association of Manufacturers and the Marketing Society of Kenya, has established a Flexible Fund to manage donations for distribution to the vulnerable. More donations have also come from politicians such as Kesses MP Swarup Mishra and ODM leader Raila Odinga. Collection points of the donations have witnessed huge crowds thereby contravening the government’s directive of observing social distance. The stampede in Kibra resulted in the death of two women as a consequence of suffocation. In Kangemi, residents were dispersed with tear gas when the food donations ran out.
These scenarios can be avoided. Safaricom, Kenya’s largest mobile network operator, has led the way with its “Bonga for Food” initiative which is based on its loyalty scheme. The Bonga for Food enables persons who are better off to share Safaricom loyalty points with those in need. The points are then converted to money by recipients for purchase of food or other basic family needs. There is urgency to innovate other ways of providing support to the vulnerable without putting their lives in danger. Digital solutions hold great potential yet remain largely unexplored.
Written by Serah Kiragu-Wissler
This article is part of Covid-19 Food/Future, an initiative aiming to provide a unique and direct insight into the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on national and local food systems. Central to our approach are the experiences of young, urban and peri-urban farmers, street vendors and informal retailers, and low-income consumers. Follow @CovidFoodFuture on Twitter.
Covid-19 Food/Future is an initiative by TMG. ThinkTank for Sustainability (www.tmg-thinktank.com), or on Twitter @TMG_think. Funding for this initiative is provided by BMZ, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
