This project aims to understand the impacts of the pandemic on those living and working informally in cities in sub-Saharan Africa and improve governance, policy and programming responses. The objectives are:
1. To inform more equitable policy and programming responses to crises in each location. To advance this goal, we seek to understand and report on the impacts of the pandemic on the lives of those living and working informally in cities (relative to the situation before the pandemic). We can thereby better understand and report on the pandemic’s impacts upon the vulnerabilities of disadvantaged groups, and on urban inequalities.
2. To increase the capacity of urban social movements working with low-income and disadvantaged households in informal neighbourhoods. Our project seeks to deepen their understanding of the pandemic’s impacts, and so enable them to develop their strategy to respond to the pandemic. Building capacities will happen via video blogs; monthly reflection meetings; data collection on covid impacts and visualisation to help inform movements’ advocacy and campaigns; and convening interactions between urban social movements and pandemic experts.
3. To enhance understanding of urban social movements’ significant potential to improve pandemic responses. This will be done through sharing outcomes in four African cities with a global audience. We will develop a comparative four-city analysis of the pandemic’s impacts and the social movement responses. This comparative analysis will also analyse relational changes between social movements and the state.
