The COVID-19 pandemic has created a pressing need for timely knowledge and evidence to help monitor and mitigate the social and economic effects of the crisis. Once the recovery from the pandemic began, new shocks hit Kenya, adding drought and inflation, making it mandatory for continuous and timely monitoring. In response, a high-frequency household telephone survey was designed and implemented to measure the socio-economic effects of these crises in Kenya and monitor recovery.
The High-Frequency Telephone Survey on the Socio-Economic Impacts of Crises, Summing COVID-19, Droughts and Inflation, in Kenya is being implemented through the World Bank, in collaboration with the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as well as the University of California, Berkeley.
Data is collected through telephone interviews [i] with families from 3 other teams. The first household organization is randomly drawn from a subset of Kenya’s 2015/16 Integrated Family Budget Survey. Potentially existing phone numbers in Kenya are randomly generated. These first two devices cover urban and rural spaces and are designed to be representative of the Kenyan population’s cell phones. The third organization is made up of refugees registered with UNHCR and living in refugee camps as well as in urban spaces.
The questionnaire covers a diversity of topics, aggregating crisis reports, COVID-19 wisdom and mitigation measures, adjustments in behavior in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic, employment, income, food security, educational activities and fitness services, subjective quality. Perceptions of the government’s reaction and coping strategies.
Data collection began in May 2020 and families have since been called several times to track the effect of crises over time. Homes were called for one and two to four months. For waves 1 through 7, the subset of families surveyed over a week is representative of the surveyed population, allowing for trend research as in the panel above.
Telephone surveys have avoided face-to-face interviews and fitness-related hazards during the COVID-19 outbreak. However, they can only succeed among respondents who use a phone with an active subscription in a domain covered over the network and, of course, – agree to be interviewed. As a result, the statistics from such a survey are only representative of this component of the population, potentially excluding to some extent poorer families who live in hard-to-succeed spaces or who do not own a telephone. The Kenya Rapid Response Telephone Survey uses reweighting techniques to mitigate these problems and ensure that the statistics are as representative as imaginable of the entire population of Kenya.
Summary of Results
November 2020 | March 2021 | June 2021
At the National Championships: July 2020, first round
At Nationals: July 2021, Rounds 1-5
On refugees: July 2021, rounds 1-5
For many Kenyans, coping with rising costs and rainfall in 2022 meant a decrease in consumption or a reduction in income.
Kenyan household livelihoods hit hardest by COVID-19 pandemic
The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on Kenya’s children
Work-care balance: evidence on COVID-19-related school closures and reopenings in Kenya
Gender differences in family coping with COVID-19 in Kenya
Impact of COVID-19 on labour market outcomes of refugees and nationals in Kenya