Presentation of the Report: Urbanization and Street Vending

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Report prepared by Pierre Schlegel and Sylvain Racaud

Nairobi, Dec. 14th

Kisumu, Dec. 16th

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How street vending,

an individual and a collective resource,

can be integrated into the urban governance?

A series of forums, an international conference,

an artistic event and videos

• The informal economy is at the core of the economic and social

systems of the developing economies

• The study of street vending concerns many social issues:

employment, urbanization, youth, inclusion of vulnerable groups,

gender…

• Contradiction between the recognition of the importance of informal

activities and the public local management

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Contents

Executive summary ....................................................................................................................... 7

A project in response to a major socio-eco-political issue ...................................................................7

The challenges for defining an unclear activity ....................................................................................8

A contradictory institutional framework in Kenya about street vending .............................................8

Nairobi and Kisumu: from shameful tolerance to violence and court cases ..................................... 10

Recommandations ............................................................................................................................ 11

1. Introduction: The project: main line of arguments ...................................................................... 6

2. General overview ...................................................................................................................... 6

3. Informal economy and informal trade in Africa ........................................................................ 11

4. Kenya: national legal, institutional and political framework ..................................................... 14

5. Cases studies: Kisumu and Nairobi ........................................................................................... 18

6. Lessons learnt & recommendations ......................................................................................... 23

Bibliography: .............................................................................................................................. 25

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• Small scale trading is a major response to Kenyan economic deadlock, both in urban

and rural areas.

• The formal sector of the economy is not able to integrate the growing working

population.

• The Kenya Vision 2030 plan indicates that 75% of the working population is in the

informal sector.

• Trade represents 60% of the informal sector, (ABD, 2013).

• Buffering role of informal sector to economic crisis (Charmes 1992, Hugon 2003),

small scale trade sector is saturated and informal sector is within the core of Kenyan

economy, among many countries.

• Even though the number of proper shops and shopping malls has greatly increased,

informal vending persists and grows.

• Conflictual relations between local authorities and SV, although there are several

forms of legitimacy, from top (National agenda) to the local (daily licences).

Justification of the project

Project goals

• Promote knowledge & combine research and practical approach: inclusive approach

• Create spaces for debate between the different stakeholders

• Situate the issue of Street Vending in Kenya (Nairobi & Kisumu) in wider contexts

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Realizations

• Research in Nairobi, Kisumu and Thika

• Organization of forums in Kisumu (12th May) and Nairobi (15th September) involving the different stakeholders

• Organization of an international academic conference in Nairobi on the 9-10th

November.

• Videos available online: Giving the voices to Street vendors, Cities Authorities and Academics (IFRA You Tube channel)

• Report available on line on IFRA website

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Informal activities: challenges for defining an unclear activity

• Hart defined in 1971 informal activities as all economic activities, both legal and illegal, that lie beyond the scope of regulation. This definition was later recognised by the International Labor Organisation (ILO)

• Economic activities that lie beyond or circumvent state regulation (Castells and Portes 1989, Lindell 2010)

• Nevertheless, this concept has been the source of very important debates, and an important number of distinctions had to be done

• Informal and formal activities are strongly interwoven and their borders are very porous

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Defining Street Vending

Street vending is inserted into the backdrop of the city, if not the backbones of urban economies

Street vending may take several forms and patterns

Criteria of

- formality/informality

- public/private space

- mobility/immobility

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Street trade may be characterizes by “informality”, “mobility” and “space”

The different processes for measuring the informal trade

• There are two main methods to measure the size of the informal trade: an approach centered on the households, and an approach centered on the enterprises. Those methods can be combined to get a better estimation.

• Measuring those phenomena is an important challenge due to the flexible nature of the informal sector, the differences of definition across countries and the lack of records.

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Street vending in developed and developing countries

• The informal sector is accounting for 10 and 20 % of developed counties GDP

• The informal sector is accounting for between 20 and 60% of urban employment in developing countries

• The informal sector appears to have not only an economic role, but also several social roles of inclusion, of association, of dialogue with the local authorities

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• The developing countries public authorities generally alternate between repressions and attempts to include the street vendors

Informal trade in Sub-Saharan Africa

• There are important differences in the forms that take informal activities across SSA

• An important set of decisions are however taken at a more local level, with the same diversity of attitudes.

• Over the last decade, SSA informal activities shifted from petty manufacturing to petty trading, rising the importance of street trading.

• In the decade 2004-2010, the informal employment as a percentage of total non-agricultural employment was about 66% (WIEGO, 2012)

• 84% of the employed women in this region were employed in the informal sector (Benjamin et al., 2014)

• Informal sector can also be used as an accumulation strategy out of the formal sector

• Development of Street Vendors Organizations

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Kenya: legal and institutional framework

• The legal framework concerning the informal economic activities and more precisely the street traders did not allow the unification of the Kenya law system around a legalization consensus

• Unclear legal framework exposes Street Traders to insecurity

• Sessional Paper No.2 of 1992 on Small Enterprise and Jua Kali Development in Kenya = not implemented (But MSE Authority)

• Sessional Paper No.2 of 2005 on the Development of Micro and Small Enterprises for Wealth and Employment Creation for Poverty Reduction

• Urban Act of 2011: ensuring a national unification of the urban management practices, notably concerning the street vendors

• SMEs Act of 2012: ensure the regularization of the street traders = not implemented

• The local General Nuisances by-laws

• Lack of licensing at the office of Registrar of MSE

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The political discourses

• The negative attitude towards street trading: street traders as a source of insecurity, pollution, noise and lack of hygiene

• The positive discourse towards street trading: street traders as new entrepreneurs, creating wealth and providing services

• The alternation, changeover between the two discourses is done according to the political agendas

• The promises…

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Nairobi

• The contradictive/unclear legal framework makes the street vendors more vulnerable to bribing systems and to the reign of arbitrary

• An important tool of the public authority in their relationship with the street vendors is the repression that occurs regularly in Nairobi. The latest example was the eviction of the Eastleigh market that has been brought into court

• The Muthurwa market is symbolic of conception-implementation-management problems

• Question of legitimacy/representativeness of street vendors organizations

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• Struggle since 1980s

• Link between SV and other

commercial facilities evolution

• CBD, bus stages and universities:

factors of commercial centrality

• Variety of commercial displays

• SV more established in Kisumu from

morning to evening

• Formality/informality

• UseS of public space

• Mobility & waves of customers and of

SV

Kisumu

• The daily governance is in a

kind of in-between, between

the national framework and

the local framework

• Projects: white elephant ex

Maendeleo market, high

interweaving with political

agenda

• Street trader’s organisations

- Formal groups regulate informal activity

- Interweaving of social welfare, savings

and political voice

- Competition between the groups

- Collusion politics (and cartels)

Lessons Learnt and Policy recommendations

• Institutional framework is unclear, there are contradictions between several levels (from national recognition to local conflicts) and legislative texts exist but are not implemented.

Clarify the legislative confusion by:

> Implementation of the Micro and Small Enterprises Act of 2012 and the Urban Areas and Cities Act of 2011

> Removal of by-laws that contradict national acts

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Lessons Learnt and Policy recommendations

• Street traders are accused of operating in undesignated areas.

> Update the old urban plans and design street trading in specific areas in consultation with all the stakeholders

> Agree on flexible and more intensive uses of public space, for example waves of traders would be able to settle where waves of workers-customers are, especially for evening hours

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Lessons Learnt and Policy recommendations

• Street trading is often negatively perceived by local authority despite the recognition of its economic contribution for households.

Public recognition of street trading as a backbone of urban economy

> Place the recognition of the importance of street trading in by-laws.

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Lessons Learnt and Policy recommendations

• Taxes collection is a problem and licenses are daily, this opens the door for daily bribes and harassment.

> Establish an agreed licenses system after consultation with all stakeholders

> City Counties should provide services to Street Traders to facilitate their adherence to taxes collection

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Lessons Learnt and Policy recommendations

• Participatory approach is weak.

Organize inclusive platforms, especially at the local level, involving City Urban Planning Department, Trade Department, Street Vendors Associations, MSE Associations, Academics (and KUP at Kisumu).

Governance should ensure a real, clear, fair and long term participatory approach, at all stages of the management of Street Vending: from initial conception of project to concrete implementation

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Thank you

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Presentation of the Report: Urbanization and Street Vending