Kenya's focus on urban vulnerability and resilience in the midst of urban transitions in Nairobi

ABSTRACT

Addressing urban vulnerability requires an understanding of the underlying determinants of resilience for individuals, households, communities and institutions – to withstand shocks, to adapt and to change. Analysing urban resilience utilises the results of five rounds of the Indicator Development for Surveillance of Urban Emergencies surveys conducted in three informal settlements of Nairobi. Results show a significant deterioration in food security and household hunger in marginalised urban populations, with other deprivations including insecurity, negative coping behaviour and inadequate access to water and sanitation. Within slum populations, there was a significant variation in income and expenditure (p < 0.05) with lowest income quintiles spending over 100% of their income on food. Significant gender disparities have been shown in lowest income quintiles, with female breadwinners earning 62% compared with male breadwinners (p < 0.05). Recommendations from this analysis include establishing thresholds for vulnerability and concrete dimensions for measuring resilience that can initiate and guide related interventions.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban
• vulnerability
• resilience

Acknowledgements

Concern Worldwide would like to thank the US Agency for International Development – Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance for their support of IDSUE.

Broader urban programme efforts in Nairobi were undertaken under the leadership of the Ministry of Health, UNICEF Kenya and Concern Worldwide.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹FAO (2010): a household that consumes less than four out of the 12 food groups has lowest dietary diversity; between four and five food groups has medium dietary diversity, while six or more food groups has highest dietary diversity.

²Taking a second job is interchangeable with taking an additional job. If the respondents had two jobs, the answer would be yes if a third job was added.