by Pat Horn

In Zambia, the Workers Education Association of Zambia (WEAZ) was formed, assisted by the Zambia Confederation of Trade Unions (ZCTU), to deal with the education and training needs of the trade unions and their members. Because of Zambia’s high rate of unemployment and the growing informal sector, WEAZ found itself looking at the training and education needs of workers in the informal sector as well. Helped by the Workers Education Association (WEA) of the UK, WEAZ decided to plan a workshop on organising workers in the informal sector in October 2001, followed by exchange visits between informal sector workers in Zambia and members of SEWU (Self-Employed Women’s Union) in South Africa and SEWA (Self-Employed Women’s Association) in India. 

I was invited to attend the WEAZ launch meeting of this project in Kitwe, Zambia, in January 2001. WEAZ arranged for me to meet with different informal sector organisations in Kitwe. I discovered that market and street vendors in Zambia seem to face the same problems as street vendors in most other countries. During this time, the Kitwe municipality burnt down the stalls of street vendors who were selling second-hand motor parts of minibus-taxi operators at a site close to the taxi-rank, known as KMB, in the middle of the night. The municipality had been unsuccessfully trying to persuade the traders, most of whom belonged to the KMB Traders Association, to move away from that site. For these vendors, it is important to sell their goods close to the taxi-rank which is frequented by their customers.

Most informal traders of Kitwe were moved out of the town’s centre and  given a place to start a market in August 1999. This market is called Chisokone, and is managed by four different area committees, i.e. Chisokone A, B, C and D.  The Chisokone A and B committees are part of the Zambia Marketeers Association (ZANAMA) and the Chisokone D committee organised themselves into another independent association known as the Kitwe Informal Traders Association.  Now the municipality wants to sell the land on which the Chisokone market is located and is trying to get the vendors to move again. The associations representing the vendors are resisting such a move, unless a suitable alternative, viable from the point of view of getting customers, can be found.

Although all the market vendors are paying for their sites, the municipality is not providing services to the vendors, according to ZANAMA.  ZANAMA officials say that they have to provide cleaning services as well as security.  They have appointed Neighbourhood Officers who are screened by the police and given security cards, who assist the police by identifying criminals in the market and handing them over to the police.  ZANAMA say they even provide social welfare services, such as assisting orphans and street children who come to the market in need of food and shelter. The KMB Traders Association and ZANAMA have apparently not succeeded in working together. Thus the KBM Traders Association did not get any support from ZANAMA to prevent their stalls from being burnt down. In fact, ZANAMA informed us that they were aware that the KBM stalls were going to be burnt down by the municipality