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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.

Well-planned urban green landscapes, including wildscapes and green spaces, have the potential to contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation. Yet for cities in low-income countries, the value of these urban landscapes in climate change response strategies is often disregarded and remains largely unexploited and unaccounted for. This paper discusses the potential role of urban green landscapes as a "soft engineering" climate change response strategy, and calls for the pursuance of management practices that preserve and promote the use of these urban spaces. It does so by combining theoretical arguments with an empirical example based on an innovative and novel approach to landscape rehabilitation, the Lafarge Ecosystems Programme, in the coastal city of Mombasa, Kenya. The paper finds that a well-managed system of green landscapes in resource-poor urban areas can generate net social benefits under a range of future scenarios. It further finds that climate change adaptation and mitigation responses can be initiated by a range of stakeholders operating at all scales.