Women Water Vendors: From Precarity to Prosperity in Kisumu’s Urban Water Economy
- Cohesu
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
In many parts of Kisumu, turning on a tap is not guaranteed. When piped water is unavailable, unreliable, or unaffordable, households turn to urban water vending—a complex network of kiosks, tankers, handcarts, bottlers, and resellers that fill the gaps left by formal water infrastructure. At the center of this system are women water vendors, whose labour sustains daily life but whose economic contributions often remain unseen.
In this report in collaboration with the University of Waterloo, we take a close look at this hidden economy. The report draws on interviews, focus group discussions, and ecosystem mapping to understand how women participate in water vending—and why so many struggle to build sustainable livelihoods from it.
Women Water Vendors and the Realities of Urban Water Vending in Kisumu
The research finds that women are present across nearly every segment of water entrepreneurship in Kisumu. Women own and manage water kiosks, bottle and package water, resell water from their homes, operate boreholes, and manage community water projects under delegated management models.
Yet participation drops sharply as scale, distance, and capital requirements increase. High-volume activities—such as tanker distribution or long-distance water transport—are dominated by men.
Even where women are involved in larger enterprises, they are often confined to sales or administrative roles, while ownership and control sit elsewhere. In many cases, women’s contributions are effectively invisible, particularly in family-run businesses where men are listed as owners despite women managing daily operations.
This pattern matters because the most capital-intensive segments of urban water vending are also the most profitable. As a result, many women water vendors remain locked into low-margin, high-effort activities, despite their central role in keeping communities supplied with water.
A livelihood defined by precarity
Water vending in Kisumu is not an easy business for anyone. Demand fluctuates with weather patterns, competition is increasing, and the expansion of the piped water network continues to reshape local markets. For women, these pressures are compounded by structural barriers.
Licensing and regulatory compliance are expensive and complex. Securing the necessary permits from county authorities, regulators, and standards bodies can cost tens of thousands of shillings—far beyond the reach of many small-scale vendors. As a result, many women operate informally, exposing them to harassment, fines, confiscation of equipment, and exclusion from formal financing.
Gender norms further shape this precarity. Women are expected to manage unpaid care work at home, limiting the time and mobility required to scale a business. Many report verbal abuse, discrimination, and safety concerns while vending water, particularly in public or male-dominated spaces. These realities restrict not only income, but ambition.
Training alone is not enough
A key insight from the research is that individual effort is not the problem. Women water vendors are resourceful, innovative, and deeply embedded in their communities. What holds them back is an ecosystem that was not designed with them in mind.
The research challenges the assumption that training alone can unlock prosperity. While financial literacy, bookkeeping, and regulatory awareness are critical “quick wins,” they will fail without parallel reforms. Women who understand licensing requirements still cannot afford them. Vendors with strong business skills remain excluded from credit because informality blocks access to loans.
Moving women from precarity to prosperity therefore requires ecosystem-level change: clearer and more affordable regulatory pathways, access to appropriate finance, stronger networks among women vendors, and meaningful inclusion of women in water policy discussions.
Pathways to prosperity—and Cohesu’s role
The report outlines practical pathways forward. Short-term interventions include financial literacy training, awareness of legal requirements, and building peer networks across the water vending ecosystem.
Longer-term transformation requires shifting cultural perceptions about women’s work, engaging women vendors in policymaking, and rethinking public-private partnerships in urban water supply.
These insights directly inform Cohesu’s ongoing work, including the launch of the Women in Water Entrepreneurship Network in Kisumu. By combining research, capacity building, mentorship, and advocacy, Cohesu aims to support women not just as water vendors, but as economic actors whose success strengthens water access, public health, and community resilience.
Making the invisible visible
Urban water vending is not a temporary solution—it is a permanent feature of rapidly growing cities like Kisumu. Recognizing and supporting women water vendors is therefore not only a gender equity issue, but a water security imperative.
By making women’s labour visible and addressing the structural barriers they face, Kisumu can move closer to a future where water access and economic opportunity flow together—from precarity to prosperity.
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