COVID-19 Coping and Resilience Mechanisms of Informal Women Workers in Kenya

The International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) is implementing a multi-country funded research project dubbed REBUILD. In this project, ICRW seeks to assess the impact of COVID-19 policies on women in the informal economy in India, Kenya, and Uganda. The project relies on an intersectional approach to establish how COVID-19 related health and economic shocks and the policy responses interact with pre – existing gender and other social norms to impact the livelihood, experience of Gender Based Violence (GBV) and Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) outcomes for women who work in the urban informal.

In a bid to amplify the challenges informal women workers’ face, which have only been compounded by the global pandemic, the REBUILD team in ICRW Africa has been documenting case studies on the social-economic impact of COVID-19 on urban informal women workers in Kenya. These stories showcase coping and resilience mechanisms against the heightened economic hardships of the pandemic.