ReturnStreetNet work plan for 2008
2008 is the final year of StreetNet’s second three-year plan (2006 - 2008). StreetNet’s evaluation for 2007 noted the need to highlight the overall objectives for which project funds are based:
Reduced marginalisation of street vendors through diminished harassment, better levels income and security, improved health situation, decreased poverty, lower levels of child labour, less impact of HIV/AIDS;
Rights of street vendors to be secured;
Effective statutory representational systems;
Proper policies to be implemented;
Enhanced organisational capacity;
Less vulnerability to patronage and corruption;
Reduced fragmentation of informal economy organisations;
Education and training for informal workers in the street vending sector.
1. Workshops: A leadership training programme for our affiliate, FEDEVAL, Peru (initiated in 2005) will take place in the first six months of 2008. Joint StreetNet - Southern African Trade Union Co-ordinating Committee (SATUCC) informal economy organisation workshop is scheduled to take place in August 2008.
2. Exchange visits: The following visits were started in 2007 and the second leg of the visits are to be completed in 2008: CNTS (Senegal) - SEWA (India). FNOTNA (Mexico) - CTCP (Nicaragua) ZCIEA (Zimbabwe) - Eastern Cape Street Vendor Alliance NEST(Nepal) - KENASVIT (Kenya) Planning for 2008 visits: There is provision for exchange visits in 2008, and it is proposed to prioritise the following organisations: SIVARA (Argentina); FOSSIEH (Honduras); LDFC (Democratic Republic of Congo); Street Vendors’ Project (New York); SEU (Bangladesh); and FUTRAND (Venezuela).
A final decision is to be made by the International Council in April on the 2008 exchange visits.
3. International meetings: The Urban Planning and Policy Development Conference in Delhi, India will be held in April 2008 back to back with the International Council meeting. NASVI and SEWA will be host organisations for the Conference. The Conference aims agreed on at the International Council meeting in May 2007 are:
Develop capacity to make input to planning and policy development;
Move towards participatory urban planning involving street vendors;
Move towards involvement of stakeholders in policy formulation;
Ultimately, how do we change the minds of judges, lawyers, urban planners etc.
Identify best practices.
4. Global Union Federations:
StreetNet-UNI: The StreetNet-UNI informal economy capacity building organisation programme in Francophone Africa (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote D’Ivoire, Guinee, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo) that has been running since 2005 ends in the second half of 2008.
StreetNet-PSI: StreetNet and the global union federation Public Services International (PSI) will continue to network informally in building links between formal and informal sector trade unions in Brazil, Colombia, South Africa and Zambia.
5. Litigation: Litigation on the case of the street vendors’ organisation Phoenix Plaza Street Traders Association (PPSTA) was filed in the Durban High Court in 2007 by the Legal Resources Centre, contesting the legality of impounding street vendors’ goods by Ethekwini Metropolitan Council. We are still waiting for a date for the case to be heard. A class action against the abuse of power by the Metro Police is also in the pipeline.
6. Newsletter: Three issues of the newsletter are scheduled to be printed this year, in March, July, November, instead of two, in response to the request by affiliates for its greater frequency. The third issue was made possible by the office economising on the newsletter budget during 2006 and 2007.
7. Website: StreetNet will continue to work on updating the website with news and events and also work for greater interaction with affiliates to keep it a street vendors’ window to the world, that provides infor-mation on informal economy organisation, StreetNet’s activities and our affiliates. This year’s web themes to highlight the struggles of street vendors and informal economy workers are:
International Women’s Day (March 8, 2008)
International Labour Day (May 1, 2008)
No Child Labour Day (June 12, 2008)
Profiling the activities of StreetNet affiliates (July -December, 2008).
This theme will need the full co-operation of all affiliates by sending in information, stories and photographs.
8. Campaigns: World Class Cities FOR ALL!! StreetNet will continue to co-ordinate the South Africa campaign in the build up to 2010 FIFA World Cup games in 2008, including:
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Negotiations with municipalities and Rail Reserve Parastatals;
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Negotiations between NEDLAC and the FIFA LOC;
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Strengthening of alliances with campaign partners.
9. Worker Education: A three-year joint programme of workers education for workers in the informal economy in the SADC (Southern African Development Community) region will be worked out jointly with DITSELA, following on the joint Train-the-Trainer workshop held in Johannesburg in July 2007.
10. Regional structures: The plans for four regional structures in Asia, Latin America, Southern & East Africa, and West Africa, will be discussed at the International Council meeting in April 2008. This follows the resolution taken at the second International Congress in 2007, that based on co-operation between affiliates in the region: “one focal point organisation will be identified by the International Congress or the International Council in each identified region, who will house the regional structure of StreetNet and co-ordinate the communication between affiliates in the region.”
Next three years to the Third StreetNet International Congress in 2010
We have found that it is possible to achieve a lot with our very limited budget, and it is likely that we will have to continue to squeeze as much as possible out of very limited budgets. We have to look for new donors for the next Three-year Plan from 2009 - 2010, as only the FNV has indicated its willingness to continue to fund our core and project activities during that time. Ford Foundation will continue to support our participation in global civil society events, however.
We anticipate that our affiliates will continue to increase in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and in the absence of funds for field visits, we are discussing with the Global Labour Institute in Geneva, how to start extending into eastern Europe. We will need to intensify our Latin American and Caribbean activities through the ILO and our contacts in ITUC and the GUFs, in order to make more significant progress in this region. We anticipate that our affiliates will become more active in the regional co-ordination of activities through new regional structures of StreetNet directly managed by our affiliates.
StreetNet’s strength lies in our affiliates
We anticipate more of our affiliates achieving results in influencing policy (both at local and national government level) in their countries, and using StreetNet’s international networks to spread their influence to other countries and international forums. We hope to see more of a culture of independence and self-sufficiency developing, at least among our stronger affiliates, as well as stronger women’s leadership at every level. There is the possibility that when we complete the current UNI-StreetNet programme, we may be able to implement a second phase - not necessarily confined to the same Francophone West African region where we have been working from 2005 - 2007. We also hope to extend our PSI-StreetNet programme, and continue to network with other global union federations (GUFs) in our work.
In conjunction with IFWEA (to which StreetNet is affiliated) and its other affiliates, we hope to make more progress in developing worker education in the informal economy. We hope that during this next three-year period we will be able to intensify the effectiveness of StreetNet International and its affiliates in developing new policy frameworks, using the following as the basis: · the results of the international meeting held in Senegal in March 2007 on collective bargaining in the informal economy, laws and litigation in the street vending sector;
· the international meeting on the theme of urban planning and policy development to be held in Delhi in May 2008;
· solidarity and alliances developed through our own campaigns such as the WCCA campaign and continued participation in other international campaigns such as the Decent Work for a Decent Life campaign.
New areas in which we hope to make more active progress (in terms of activities on the ground) during the next three years are:
1. Disabled street vendors, informal market vendors and hawkers;
2. HIV/AIDS and its effects on and implications for our sector;
3. Class relations and employment relations between street vendors, informal market vendors and hawkers within our organisations;
4. World trade issues, their effects on and implications for our sector.