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STREETNET INTERNATIONAL LAUNCH

By Pat Horn

StreetNet will be launched in Durban, South Africa, from 12 - 14 November 2002, as an international alliance of street vendors. The purpose of this organisation will be to promote and protect the rights of market and street vendors and hawkers, and to increase their visibility, voice and bargaining power throughout the world.

Preparations

In preparation for the international launch of StreetNet, the following activities have been undertaken since the beginning of 2000:

Media and information

  • Information about street vendors’ organisations in different countries, and about their organising and collective bargaining strategies, has been collected on a data-base.
  • A website in three languages (English, French and Spanish) has been set up with information about market vendors, street vendors, hawkers and StreetNet, at www.streetnet.org.za
  • Four 6-monthly issues of a newsletter have been produced in English and Spanish. The last three were also produced in French. These were circulated to street vendors’ organisations in Latin America, Africa and Asia as well as a wide range of other interested organisations worldwide.

Regional Workshops

Three regional workshops were held in:

  • Latin America (February 2001) in Lima, Peru, hosted by COPEME, a coalition of micro-credit organisations.
  • Asia (February 2002) in Patna, India, hosted by NASVI (National Alliance of Street Vendors of India).
  • Africa (May 2002) in Accra, Ghana, hosted by the Ghana TUC (Trades Union Congress).

The workshops achieved the following objectives:

  • sharing experiences of street and market vendors in the region and hearing about the experiences of street vendors in other regions.
  • sharing experiences about how the problems of street and market vendors have been overcome through organisation, and sharing information about how other organisations (in other regions) work.
  • making recommendations from the region about how to structure StreetNet as the international alliance of street and market vendors and hawkers.
  • making plans for building national alliances of street and market vendors and hawkers (or any other form of national co- ordination) in African countries before the international launch of StreetNet in November 2002.

Policy dialogues were held in Patna and Accra following the regional workshops there, where local and national government officials debated policy issues with street vendor participants from other countries in the region.

Field visits

Field visits were made to the following countries: Thailand (Bangkok) September 2000; Kenya and Uganda, October 2000; Zambia (Kitwe) January 2001; Ica (Peru) February 2001; Philippines and Thailand (Chiang Mai) July 2001; Zambia (Lusaka) October 2001; Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and Nigeria, Oct/Nov 2001; Ghana (Kumasi) May 2002.

As a result of the field visits and regional workshops, a range of organisations were brought into StreetNet as contact organisations:

  • national alliances of street vendors (eg India, Korea);
  • informal sector alliances (eg Philippines);
  • trade unions organising workers in the informal economy into their own     structures (eg Ghana, Uganda, Colombia, Venezuela);
  • trade unions setting up informal sector organisations (eg Cote d’Ivoire, Mocambique);
  • city alliances of street vendors (eg Calcutta);
  • individual market and street vendors and hawkers’ organisations in 40 countries, mainly in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

In South Africa, meetings were held with various street vendors’ organisations, including: SEWU (Self-Employed Women’s Union); ACHIB (African Council of Hawkers & Informal Businesses); Gauteng Hawkers Association (GHA); Durban forum of street vendors (Informal Trade Management Board); 9 Eastern Cape street vendors’ organisations.

New structures

StreetNet has facilitated the formation of the following new structures, to build co-operation between street and market vendors’ organisations and to enable them to speak with one voice and be recognised in collective bargaining and policy dialogue:

  • Nairobi Hawkers Alliance (NAHA) in Kenya, and
  • Kisumu Alliance of Street Vendors and Informal Traders (KASVIT)
  • Eastern Cape Alliance of Street Vendors, South Africa
  • Alliance of Zambian Informal Economy Associations (AZIEA)

Research project

StreetNet assisted in the formulation of a research project on women street vendors in four African countries (Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Uganda and Zimbabwe) which is being undertaken by the Urban Policies Programme of WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment: Globalising and Organising). The findings of this research will be put together with those of two previous research projects on women street vendors in South Africa and Kenya, to produce a six-country comparative report.

Exchange Visit

An exchange visit between the Self-Employed Women’s Union (SEWU) in South Africa and ASSOTSI (Associacao dos Operadores e Trabalhadores do Sector Informal) formed by the OTM (Trade Union National Centre) in Mocambique, was facilitated. The unions shared experiences, met each others’ members and learnt from each other about organising strategies and different ways of building sustainable organisations of workers in the informal economy. At the invitation of the SFTU (Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions) the SEWU group also visited Swaziland for a few days on the way to Maputo, met with street vendors and advised them about organising themselves into organisations or unions with the assistance of the SFTU.

Draft Constitution

A draft constitution has been prepared, based on the guidelines and recommendations made at the three regional workshops. This has been circulated to everybody who has been involved up to now for comments. After comments have been received, a revised draft will be prepared, which will be presented to the international launch conference for final amendment and adoption.

International launch

The aim is to launch StreetNet as an international organisation to take this work further. This will involve the following:

1. Adoption of a democratic constitution.

2. Election of office-bearers in terms of the new constitution.

3. Adoption of a 3-year or 5-year plan of action from 2003 to 2005 or 2007.

4. Adoption of founding policies and principles.

Who will attend

We are hoping to have most of the organisations which have worked with us during the three years of preparations, attending and participating in the international launch. This means mainly people from the organisations of market and street vendors and hawkers, including trade unions who are organising people in this sector. However, we are limited by funds. We raised sufficient funds from the Ford Foundation at the beginning of the year to finance 16 international participants from organisations in different African, Asian and Latin American countries, and 13 from the host country, which is South Africa. We have an additional list of 18 international and 10 South African participants for whom we are trying to raise additional funds to attend. The number of participants we have in the end will depend on the amount of funds we are able to raise.

We know that many other people are interested in attending the international launch of StreetNet, such as researchers, members of different NGOs interested in issues of development, people working in local government, etc. We would like to have as many of such people as possible joining us for part of the meeting too. However, StreetNet will not be able to finance the participation of such participants while we are still looking for more funds for our street vendor organisations. But we hope that some of them will be able to participate as observers at their own expense.

After the launch

At the moment we are drafting a three-year plan of work for StreetNet from 2003 - 2005, for discussion at the international launch. The plan that is adopted will guide StreetNet’s work for the following three years. In the meantime we are trying to raise funds for the activities proposed in the draft three-year plan. The kinds of activities which appear in the draft plan are the following:

  • Getting the new democratically-elected structures of StreetNet working well.
  • Research and documentation.
  • Newsletter (with a new name to be decided at the launch)
  • Starting to work in new regions.
  • Meetings and workshops (international, regional, national)
  • Panels and public presentations
  • Organisational support
  • Policy work and training
  • Litigation activism
  • Field visits and exchange visits
  • International campaigns

We are not envisaging setting up StreetNet offices in different parts of the world, or employing more people. Rather we hope to continue to work in partnership with organisations in each country as we have been doing up to now (eg National Alliance of Street Vendors of India, Trades Union Congress of Ghana, Workers Education Association of Zambia, HomeNet South-East Asia in Thailand, etc.) These partnerships have been crucial in helping StreetNet to achieve all that it has up to now. We hope, in the next three years, to develop more such working partnerships, particularly with trade union national centres in different countries.

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