The novel corona virus disease (Covid-19) outbreak has caused great uncertainty in all spheres of human life. The experience has been incredibly humbling given that no country or section of society, regardless of its wealth or status, has been spared. The pandemic is not only a health crisis, but is also having serious damaging effects on societies, economies and vulnerable groups. Timely response is necessary in order to alleviate human suffering and to prevent irreversible destruction of livelihoods. This paper provides preliminary data on the socio-economic impacts of Covid-19 in the coastal city of Mombasa, Kenya, at the time of government-imposed curfews and cessation of movement. We conducted online surveys for two weeks during the restrictions period. The data was collected using online questionnaires directed at the city residents. The data highlights the mobile gender gap resulting from gender inequalities, residents’ reliance on the government for Covid-19 information but lack of trust for government interventions, inadequate provisions of essential services, and the residents’ lack of preparedness to tackle similar challenges in the future.

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Spatial information is limited for artisanal fisheries management and almost entirely absent for migrant fishers. Here, we addressed this data gap for East African migrant fishers via participatory mapping methods. We worked with 14 migrant fishing vessels operating from four fish landing sites in Kenya. We monitored individual vessels using GPS tracking to produce fishing ground intensity maps. We then generated fishing preference maps via focus group discussions. The fishing intensity maps provided high-resolution spatial information on fishing activities, whereas the fishing preference maps identified preferred fishing grounds. These two techniques generally showed high agreement. By further integrating these two fisher coproduced maps with supplemental vessel logbook data, it is clear that any spatial management measures would most affect migrant fishers using ringnets, hook and line, and cast nets gear. Our successful application of low-technology participatory mapping techniques to provide geospatial fisheries data have broad application to data poor fisheries worldwide.