Street food and income generation for poor households in Kinshasa

Abstract

This paper describes the role of street food production and sale in the livelihoods of 256 food sellers in Kinshasa, including who within each household undertakes the work, the incomes received and profits gained, and the role of the income in households’ livelihoods. It also describes the context in which increasing numbers of people have had to turn to self-production, with the decline in formal sector employment and cuts in government jobs (and incomes). Most street food enterprises were the sole livelihood source for households. For virtually all women sellers, their husbands were unemployed, sick, disabled or dead. Many men sellers turned to street foods because they had lost jobs in the formal economy. Most street food enterprises produced low incomes but allowed households to meet their basic consumption needs.