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LIVING THROUGH CRISES
Complaints included that many needy people were excluded by the overly narrow beneficiary selection criteria; the work was excessive, particularly for undernourished people; and the benefits were meager. The positive experience of school feeding programs contrasted with this negative assessment of the food-for-work program. It is worth noting that the WFP abandoned its food-for-work scheme in July 2009, with the minister for Special Programmes stating it was “wrong to subject those facing famine to digging trenches and making dams on empty stomachs” (WFP 2009). Despite the existence of more sources of support at the end of the research period than at its start, concerns remained about how such support was designed and the transparency with which the programs were implemented. One concern was the unpredictability of the support. Women in Mukuru who had been members of the new kazi kwa vijana (work for youth) Kenyan Youth Employment project found that their incomes from this project were erratic. A woman focus group participant said: Sometimes in the kazi kwa vijana you do not know how much you will be paid. Sometimes you get paid K Sh 3,000 [$35.71] at the end of the month, and at other times, the payment rises to K Sh 5,000 [$59.52], though in the contract we signed for pay of K Sh 5,500 [$65.48]. Woman in Mukuru, 2011
There were also concerns about the poor quality of relief food. A group of Lango Baya women living with HIV/AIDS complained that officially distributed relief food included “beans that won’t cook” and “maize with a strong smell of pesticide that affects their health negatively”; they also noted that they were not provided any cooking fat. Credit needs emerged as a prominent theme among the slightly betteroff in both locations. Traders, retailers, farmers, and aspiring entrepreneurs all gave examples of credit constraints limiting their activities. These findings highlight areas that microcredit has to date failed to reach. Popular Pressure for Responses to the Crisis Over the three years of the research, the official social protection response appeared to strengthen and widen, so that there were many more programs or sources of support to point to in 2011 compared to 2009. But the 2011 research round also uncovered a strong mood of popular discontent about the economic situation and the political response to it. This frame of mind was particularly marked among urban people, especially among young men (see Hossain and Green 2011).