The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a global economic recession which has resulted in a dramatic loss of livelihoods and income on a global scale. Given the outsized impact on food insecurity throughout Africa, the resulting drop in purchasing power among those who lost income has had a major impact especially for those populations that were already vulnerable. In particular, those in the informal economy are most affected.

In many parts of the developing countries around the world, community radio acts as a vehicle used to promote development at the grass-root level. Non-profit, civil societies, multinational companies, and citizens work with community radios on various social and economic issues ranging from poverty, agriculture, gender inequality, education, and marketing among others.

Emily Achieng Rayamo is both a retail trader and a social worker working with Pillars care farmers foundation in Migori. Emily comes from Suna eastward under Kakrao in Rayabhi village in Migori County, Kenya. The region is a large producer of sugarcane, sweet potatoes, maize, and beans. Emily’s primary source of income is retail trade in agricultural commodities including cereals and vegetables. She has had her business for four years.

In this quarterly report, we have analysed user growth and interactions with the Sauti platforms in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda. The Q2 2021 quarter saw 13,039 new users access the platform. Our Kenya platform saw the largest growth over the quarter, mostly driven by our feature expansion, which now includes: general health, business operations, and agriculture information. In all four countries, the majority of price requests remain within domestic markets, however, cross-border trade from Kenya has increased by nearly 20 percentage points since the Q1 2021 Report.

Sauti and TruTrade together with medical experts Response-Med have developed and disseminated customized COVID-19 awareness and prevention materials including short animated clips and radio ads, specific to the agriculture supply chain actors in Uganda through Sauti and TruTrade digital platforms.

This report leverages the unique analytical perspective from Sauti East Africa to document traders’ changes in business behaviour in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. For this report, we present behavioural insights from our mobile-based market information platforms in four East African countries: Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Sauti took the lead on increasing participation of women traders in select sectors through the expansion of its digitized platforms, specifically USSD/SMS and WhatsApp. The targeted project counties included Siaya, Makueni, Kilifi, Migori and Bungoma.

Sauti in collaboration with Danish Refugee Council (DRC) through the Market Monitoring project kicked off price collection activities across three different market locations: Nairobi, Kakuma and Dadaab.

In this quarterly report, we have analysed user growth and interactions with the Sauti platforms in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda. The Q2 2021 quarter saw 13,039 new users access the platform. Our Kenya platform saw the largest growth over the quarter, mostly driven by our feature expansion, which now includes: general health, business operations, and agriculture information. In all four countries, the majority of price requests remain within domestic markets, however, cross-border trade from Kenya has increased by nearly 20 percentage points since the Q1 2021 Report.