— Master’s Thesis —
The informal food sector is big and persistent in sub-Saharan Africa and provides employment and livelihood opportunities to a large proportion of urban residents. Although feminization of the informal food sector has been recognized, its gendered dimensions have not been fully understood. Most studies have focused on both male and female food vendors with less attention given on those operating in urban informal settlements. As such, this study is an assessment of enterprise dynamics of women street food vendors in urban informal settlements with a specific reference on Mukuru Kwa Reuben in Nairobi, Kenya.
The study has four objectives which seek to establish the socio-economic characteristics of women street food vendors; determine their enterprise characteristics and strategies; assess the livelihood opportunities and challenges of their food vending enterprises; and examine how Covid-19 containment measures affected their food vending enterprises. To achieve the objectives, data was collected from a sample of 172 women street food vendors in Mukuru Kwa Reuben. For a wider spatial coverage, the study sample was selected using stratified random sampling based on the 12 villages of the settlement. The study utilized both primary and secondary data. Primary data was collected through a questionnaire-based survey, while secondary data collected from review of relevant literature.
The results reveal that majority of the women operating street food vending enterprises are migrants to Nairobi (87.2%), youths aged between 18-39 years (72.6%), married (64.3%), and have attained secondary level of education (61.1%). A significant proportion (44.7%) entered into street food vending business more recently between 2020 and 2024, while almost all of them (97.7%) required a start-up capital. The start-up capital was largely drawn from personal savings (62.8%). The vendors sell a wide-range of products, operate from makeshift platforms with makeshift shades (61.6%), source their supplies from wholesale and retail markets in Nairobi, and transport them to their business premises by use of public transport (71.5%).
To maintain success of their enterprises, the vendors apply a wide-range of locational, operational, pricing, and stocking strategies. The main strategies include locating near customers (80.2%), extending operation hours at night (89.5%), pricing based on wholesale prices (72.1%), and stocking based on price of supplies (48.3%). Street food vending enterprises provide the women involved with a number of livelihood opportunities for economic survival. For example, street food vending is the main source of income for almost all the vendors (94.2%), 69.2 percent cannot survive without it, 98.3 percent intend to grow their enterprises, and 55.2 percent have an investment attributed to the enterprise. However, the vendors experience a number of operational, security, and policing challenges, including low levels of organizational structure and access to loans and training opportunities.
Lastly, to a number of vendors, the Covid-19 containment measures led, to a large extent, to increased cost of purchasing stock (64.6%), cost of transport (61.1%), and cost of running business (60.2%), including loss, spoilage and wastage of perishable food products (60.2%). On the other hand, the containment measures reduced, to a large extent, the daily number of customers (69.9%), regular daily business hours (66.4%), and daily sales and profits (63.7%). In conclusion, despite the livelihood opportunities that come with street food vending, there is need to reduce the challenges women vendors face and enhance their resilience. The study recommends the enactment of policies, legislative frameworks and governance measures that supports sustainable urban food systems governance, business financing, organization, and training opportunities for women street food vendors, including resilience to external shocks such as Covid-19 pandemic.
