This case study – originally published as part of Covid Collective Research for Policy and Practice series – shows how an urban social movement was able to produce the knowledge that state agencies needed when the pandemic struck, securing more inclusive policy responses and building legitimacy for alternative knowledge processes and associated development ambitions.
It details how, as soon as the Covid-19 pandemic struck Kenya, the Muungano Alliance began to collect data from its community leaders based in 313 informal neighbourhoods across 21 counties. From March-June 2020, the Alliance collated information from hundreds of community leaders and produced regular reports of the situation on the ground.