Ebook: POVERTY ANDINEQUALITY DURING THE PANDEMIC : The diverging experiences of Kenya and Senegal

The governments of Kenya and Senegal
reacted quickly to contain the spread
of the Covid-19 virus. They applied different
lockdown policies, however, and
different social relief measures to assist
vulnerable households in withstanding
the health crisis. Kenya clamped down
harder on economic activities than did
Senegal, whereas Senegal provided
a more generous state aid package
to poor households than Kenya. The
report discusses the impact of these
different policy approaches on poverty
and inequality in the two countries’ informal
economies.
POVERTY AND INEQUALITY
DURING THE PANDEMIC
The diverging experiences of Kenya and Senegal
•
Our data show significant discrepancies
with regard to poverty and inequality.
In Kenya, poverty in the informal labour
force increased substantially between
October 2018 and December 2020,
whereas in Senegal, poverty and inequality
declined between June 2019
and April 2022. Kenya’s experience may
be considered a »normal response«
to an economic recession but the improvement
in Senegal’s social indicators
makes that country stand out from the
general trend of declining income during
the pandemic. We cannot exclude
other factors, but conclude that the
sheer magnitude of the social relief
package in Senegal was instrumental
in improving poverty and inequality indicators.
•
The data are taken from country-wide
representative empirical studies conducted
as part of the FES-IDOS-ILO
project on »Informal Employment,
Social Security and Political Trust in
Sub-Saharan Africa«. The project ran
from 2018 to 2022 and includes opinion
surveys of views on access to health
services, and on political trust and reasons
for joining groups, including levels
of interest in trade union membership.
The general report on the project was
recently published under the title A
Majority Working in the Shadows.
More studies on income, poverty and
inequality are being prepared and will
soon be published.