Street food and income generation for poor households in Kinshasa

This paper describes the role of street food production and sale in the liv elihoods of 256 food sellers in Kinshasa, including who within each househo ld undertakes the work, the incomes received and profits gained, and the ro le 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 (a nd incomes). Most street food enterprises were the sole livelihood source f or households. For virtually all women sellers, their husbands were unemplo yed, sick, disabled or dead, Many men sellers turned to street foods becaus e they had lost jobs in the formal economy. Most street food enterprises pr oduced low incomes but allowed households to meet their basic consumption n eeds.