Gender

Parents across Kenya are receiving ambiguous messages about the timing of school re-openings amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Between 7 September and 14 October, our team spoke with 207 participants from the Kenya Financial Diaries, tracing the ways COVID-19 was impacting their lives.

As we completed a new round of COVID-19 Diaries interviews in mid-October, we noticed a shift in the story of economic hardship.

On average, families in the Kenya Financial Diaries started to see improvements in their economic situation as of October 2020, but incomes are still far from normal.

How Kenyan mothers are keeping food on the table through the coronavirus crisis

Agnes, 45, lives in rural Makueni with her children and elderly parents.  She had once been married, but her husband proved an unreliable partner.

This week is financial inclusion week, a good moment to take stock of the multibillion dollar ‘fortune at the bottom of the pyramid’ that has been so successfully reaped by the financial inclusion industry.

After three months of Covid-19 restrictions, Jennifer’s economic options have run out.  She is five months pregnant, and the baby’s father has blocked her calls.  She hasn’t been able to pay rent in three months and worries that she and her children are on the verge of eviction.

Desperate for income, many Diaries respondents have gone back to work, but find it nearly impossible to earn a living.

The infection rate of COVID-19 is as yet low in Kenya, but the economic consequences are already biting.

Vera (45) lives in an informal settlement in Mombasa.  Usually it is just her at home these days.

Coronavirus disruptions are giving some Kenyan woman a reprieve from domestic burdens and giving couples a chance to change their marriages

Natasha is a young woman who has a cake baking business on the outskirts of Nairobi. She has a bank account for her business which she uses intensively. Natasha’s business was doing well and she needed a loan to expand.

Today, mobile money has managed to penetrate over 70% of the Kenyan population, with more people claiming access to services such as Safaricom’s M-Pesa than ever before.

Up until now studies concerning mobile money and financial inclusion have focused largely on aggregate adoption rates and usage trends. Few have shed light on the ways in which women, men and young adults (men and women ages 18-25), use mobile money differently.