Resilience of food traders in the popular markets of Ouagadougou to the Covid-19 pandemic
Keywords:
Covid-19, traders, gender, resilience, OuagadougouAbstract
The Corona Virus pandemic has led to a change in the principles of the markets: production, distribution
and consumption. The government of Burkina Faso, following the example of developed countries,
quickly adopted measures to fight the spread of the virus. These measures include the closure of markets
and "yaars", restaurants, maquis and other production centers of goods and services. This research
conducted between 2020-2022 aimed to understand the challenges and resilience of the informal economy
in the face of the Covid-19 control measures. It discusses the underlying challenges as well as the
measures taken to ensure the well-being of agribusiness traders in the popular markets of the city of
Ouagadougou. The social construction of facts was used as a theoretical framework through a quantitative
method for data collection and analysis. The results show that although 96.6% of men said that the crisis has affected their activities, 56% of these men have another income-generating activity. Among women,
93.8% said they were affected by Covid 19, 50% of whom have another income-generating activity.
However, although the challenges and the level of resilience of traders and their needs are not different
according to gender, the social construction of female identity impacts on the level of resilience of women
to the Covid-19 pandemic.