How COVID-19 Continues to Affect Lives of Refugees in Kenya : Rapid Response Phone Survey Rounds 1 to 5
Understanding the socioeconomic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on refugees is important to inform targeted policy responses. The arrival of COVID-19 disrupted lives across all countries and communities, creating unprecedented challenges for the wo...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Policy Note |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2021
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/undefined/202201637042522937/How-COVID-19-Continues-to-Affect-Livelihoods-in-Kenya-Rapid-Response-Phone-Survey-Rounds-1-to-5 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36651 |
| Summary: | Understanding the socioeconomic
impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on refugees is important to
inform targeted policy responses. The arrival of COVID-19
disrupted lives across all countries and communities,
creating unprecedented challenges for the world. As of
August 2021, there have been more than 200,000 cases in
Kenya, with more than 4,000 deaths. In response, the
Government of Kenya (GoK) has imposed a range of
restrictions to curb the spread of the pandemic. However,
this has inadvertently resulted in socioeconomic effects on
the population in Kenya, including those in refugee
settlements. Data from the Rapid Response Phone Surveys
(RRPS) will be essential in providing information to monitor
and mitigate the impact of the pandemic. For refugee and
surrounding host communities, which span the humanitarian
development nexus, this type of data is particularly
important as comparatively there is the least data globally
for these populations have. The Kenya COVID-19 RRPS aims to
fill socioeconomic data gaps by providing evidence to inform
targeted policy and programmatic response. With face-to-face
data collection no longer a feasible option due to high
infection rates and government restrictions, phone surveys
emerged as an alternative for rapid and frequent data
collection. The World Bank in collaboration with the Kenya
National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and researchers from
the University of California, Berkeley, are implementing
Rapid Response Phone Surveys for (i) Kenyan and refugee
households, (ii) micro-enterprises run by young
entrepreneurs, and (iii) formal enterprises. This note
provides findings and makes policy recommendations based on
five waves of data collection for Kenyan and refugee
households. The RRPS data is unique as it allows to draw a
picture of the socioeconomic situation of all major refugee
groups in Kenya during the COVID-19 pandemic, covering camp
and urban refugees as well as stateless persons in the same
as Kenyan nationals. Kenyan nationals residing in urban
areas were selected as the comparison group throughout this
report, as densely populated areas, such as Kenya’s urban
areas and refugee camps, were differently affected by the
pandemic and thus this comparison is relatively easily made. |
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