Unpacking the Land and Socio-Economic Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Rural Kenya

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

REVIEW of the manuscript titled:

Social sciences -1815499

 Unpacking land and socio-economic effects of Covid-19 pandemic in rural Kenya

The background and motivation of the chosen research theme is in accordance with the four arguments of the authors: Kenya has the second most affected country by the pandemic due to Covid-19, in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the strict measures imposed by the government, the degree of poverty of the population and the decentralized governance of the country.

The title of the article has a very important role in reading an article. It reflects what the authors wanted to present.

The abstract is a concise summary of the research conducted, providing information about the topic, to a lesser extent the investigative method and the conclusions of the study.

I suggest the authors reduce the number of keywords, for example, they can be those in the title: unpacking land, socio-economic effects, Covid-19, rural Kenya.

The structure of the paper was organized into several sections.

 Please find my comments below.

Line 24: I propose the use of the classic Introduction title.

Line 33-34: to change with: Workie et al. [3] and Stephens et al. [4]

Line 92: ‘’MCG, 2018’’ is reference 15?

Line 127: the distribution of the focus groups was heterogeneous in terms of the profile of the participants, and the number of participants/groups was equal in Murang'a and relatively close in Kilifi. Basically, the general theme of the focus group was the socio-economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic in rural Kenya, and the objectives were:

- establishing the opinion of the participants on how the communities in Murang'a and Kilifi counties received the Covid-19 pandemic and related information.

- determining the degree to which the Covid-19 pandemic has affected access to and use of land and has affected the people of Murang'a and Kilifi counties from a socio-economic point of view.

- Find out how the communities of Murang'a and Kilifi have responded to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and what the situation is due to the withdrawal of government measures.

I suggest using the terms of theme and objectives, specific to focus groups, instead of those of question and sub-questions.

Line 179: I propose the use of the classic Results title.

The authors evaluated the two regions according to the same set of four criteria.

The discussion section highlights the results obtained, but it would have been preferable if the authors could support the observations with some bibliographical references. These are missing, instead, we consider this section as conclusions.

 

The article specifies some observations for future studies.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

 As requested, I have specifically addressed all the comments are presented below:

Unpacking land and socio-economic effects of Covid-19 pandemic in rural Kenya

The background and motivation of the chosen research theme is in accordance with the four arguments of the authors: Kenya has the second most affected country by the pandemic due to Covid-19, in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the strict measures imposed by the government, the degree of poverty of the population and the decentralized governance of the country.

The title of the article has a very important role in reading an article. It reflects what the authors wanted to present.

The abstract is a concise summary of the research conducted, providing information about the topic, to a lesser extent the investigative method and the conclusions of the study.

I suggest the authors reduce the number of keywords, for example, they can be those in the title: unpacking land, socio-economic effects, Covid-19, rural Kenya.

Done

The structure of the paper was organized into several sections.

Please find my comments below.

Line 24: I propose the use of the classic Introduction title.

Line 33-34: to change with: Workie et al. [3] and Stephens et al. [4]

Line 92: ‘’MCG, 2018’’ is reference 15?

Done

Line 127: the distribution of the focus groups was heterogeneous in terms of the profile of the participants, and the number of participants/groups was equal in Murang'a and relatively close in Kilifi.

Basically, the general theme of the focus group was the socio-economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic in rural Kenya, and the objectives were:

- establishing the opinion of the participants on how the communities in Murang'a and Kilifi counties received the Covid-19 pandemic and related information.

- determining the degree to which the Covid-19 pandemic has affected access to and use of land and has affected the people of Murang'a and Kilifi counties from a socio-economic point of view.

- Find out how the communities of Murang'a and Kilifi have responded to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and what the situation is due to the withdrawal of government measures.

I suggest using the terms of theme and objectives, specific to focus groups, instead of those of question and sub-questions.

Done as recommended

Line 179: I propose the use of the classic Results title.

Done

The authors evaluated the two regions according to the same set of four criteria.

The discussion section highlights the results obtained, but it would have been preferable if the authors could support the observations with some bibliographical references. These are missing, instead, we consider this section as conclusions.

We have tackled the above comments in the revised manuscript;

• To improve on the structure and make it easy for readability; we have presented the findings for Murang’a and Kilifi under the same sub-theme;
• We have separated discussions from conclusions and included supportive references where applicable.

The article specifies some observations for future studies.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review this article. The article is of interest, it presents a topical issue, namely the socio-economic effects post Covid period in two regions of Kenya.

For the improvement of the article I recommend to complete or make the following points:

-complete the abstract with the methodology used, the novelty of the study and its limitations;

-drafting the objective(s) of the study;

-writing the working hypotheses;

-clearer and more extensive presentation of the working methodology and research tools;

-in the results chapter, the presentation of the economic effects should be expanded and in absolute amounts for the two regions;

-I recommend writing a separate chapter on discussion and conclusions;

-writing the limitations and novelty of the study in the conclusions chapter.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Below please find the responses to your comments and suggestions as integrated into the revised manuscript.

• We have included the methodology abstract and limitations in the methods and materials sections; I believe the inclusion of limitations in this section is sufficient to avoid redundancy.
• The novelty of the study is fairly covered in the introduction (and abstract); addressing the knowledge gap on the impact of Covid-19 in rural Kenya (SSA).
• We have re-written the materials and methods to better capture the objectives of the study; the hypotheses are fairly covered in the introduction where we speak of the socio-economic effects of Covid-19 in Africa, and the goal is to substantiate these at the rural (local) level.
• We have revisited the result section and restructured it to make it easier to follow and compare/contrast the situations in the two regions of focus.
• We have separated discussions and conclusions (we have also included additional supportive literature in the discussion).

Thank you for the opportunity to review this article. The article is of interest, it presents a topical issue, namely the socio-economic effects post Covid period in two regions of Kenya.

For the improvement of the article I recommend to complete or make the following points:

-complete the abstract with the methodology used, the novelty of the study and its limitations;

-drafting the objective(s) of the study;

-writing the working hypotheses;

-clearer and more extensive presentation of the working methodology and research tools;

-in the results chapter, the presentation of the economic effects should be expanded and in absolute amounts for the two regions;

-I recommend writing a separate chapter on discussion and conclusions;

-writing the limitations and novelty of the study in the conclusions chapter.

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Editor,

I read this manuscript in detail, in which the authors evaluated the unpacking land and socio-economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic in rural Kenya. In my view, the current manuscript is suitable for publication in the Journal of Social Sciences.

I should mention that the English in the present manuscript needs some improvements before publication.

Best regards,

Author Response

Thank you for your review; I have re-read the manuscript and addressed the grammar/typos errors in the text.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I appreciate the effort made by the authors to improve the article and agree with publication in the present form.