Strength in Numbers: The Kenya National Alliance of Street Vendors and Informal Traders Expands

By Ariel Jacobson
Originally published in the Spring/Summer 2011 issue of Rights Now

A typical market day in Kisii buzzes with bargaining street vendors, music, traffic, and women chatting as they buy essentials. You’ll find bunches of kale, bins of dagaa (dried fish), and sacks of rice. Tarps spread on wooden tables or the packed-earth market floor showcase staples from sweet potatoes to charcoal, while hawkers tote kerosene containers and vendors display neat rows of shoes and vibrant mitumba (secondhand clothing). But we weren’t shopping. Instead, UUSC Programs Director Atema Eclai and I were on our way to meet with leaders of a new site of the Kenya National Alliance of Street Vendors and Informal Traders (KENASVIT), a UUSC partner. Over the past year, UUSC has supported KENASVIT in work on a key aspect of its strategic plan: doubling membership by 2012.

KENASVIT is a network that secures and enhances the livelihoods of more than 8,000 street vendors and informal traders. At its 2006 launch, the organization was composed of seven urban alliances with just over 1,500 members. During the past year, KENASVIT has established alliances in five additional towns where, on this partner visit, we met with new leaders to assess their progress and provide technical support. As they join the international street-vendor movement, UUSC is providing training on leadership and group dynamics, while helping them refine their strategies and strengthen their membership.

A national umbrella organization, KENASVIT organizes and empowers street vendors and informal traders to improve their businesses through training, access to credit, and dialogue with local authorities and other institutions on policy issues. For example, through a national Micro and Small Enterprises Bill, KENASVIT is pushing for formal legal recognition of informal workers, an end to harassment by local authorities, construction of market spaces with water and sanitation facilities, and increased access to capital.

KENASVIT’s efforts to amplify the voices of informal workers are not only aimed at securing basic rights but also at enabling traders to exercise their civic responsibilities as vitally important actors in shaping the future of the nation. In fact, the informal sector was identified in Kenya’s economic-
development blueprint “Vision 2030” as fundamental to the country’s transformation into a middle-income nation in the next two decades.

Yet, street vendors and informal traders face great challenges. They work under unfavorable laws, pay heavy fees to local authorities, and are forced to adapt to the devastating global economic recession. As one fishmonger in Busia said, “The town council can relocate us at any time, and this can be a big setback to our business when we have established customers in a specific location.” With the streets as their workplaces, informal traders lack protection from the elements, physical security, and inventory storage. For women, youth, disabled people, and other marginalized traders, obstacles to success can be even more daunting.

While the informal economy comprises an estimated half to three-quarters of all nonagricultural employment in countries in the Global South (about 75 percent in Kenya), it lacks the legal and social protections usually associated with formal work. The majority of informal-sector jobs are characterized by unsafe or unpredictable working conditions; the absence of social benefits such as pensions and health insurance; and no protection in the event of layoff or changes in wages or hours.

To address this, UUSC is helping KENASVIT organize its members to dialogue with local authorities, preparing them through leadership forums for women and disabled members as well as negotiation trainings. In addition, KENASVIT is conducting civic-education workshops to raise members’ awareness of the economic rights included in the new Kenyan constitution that was approved by national referendum last year. Most importantly, KENASVIT is bringing thousands of members together to have a voice — and strength in numbers. As the chair of the new Kisii alliance said, “Our first achievement is that we have actually come together as a group, and that we know we can do more together than we can do apart.”

Ariel Jacobson is a senior associate in UUSC’s Economic Justice Program.