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Kenya: Nairobi’s street traders count
By Peter Odhiambo, NISCOF

When repeated efforts to advocate and lobby the government on informal sector policy fell on deaf ears in 2005, the Nairobi Informal Sector Confederation (NISCOF) decided to do a census in Nairobi, which would clearly portray the true nature and composition of the sector. 

NISCOF is a non-partisan, corporate membership federation committed to facilitating, strengthening and mobilising informal traders’ organisations for active participation in policy management. The recently completed census by NISCOF provides accurate figures for stakeholders to push economic policy in a supportive direction. 

The surveys were conducted within a span of two days only. The data collection form was distributed by a selected group from the NISCOF Secretariat one evening to all 
the traders within Central Business District (CBD) at their trading sites. The response was overwhelming and the returned forms accounted for 87.2% of the 4,000 questionnaires which asked for the traders’ names, business location, gender, educational background, number of children, trading activities and age. The various characteristics and workings of the 3,488 informal sector traders operating within the CBD of Nairobi area were analysed in the research. 

The study reflected that the lack of designated markets in proportion to the number of traders, is the main cause of the high number of informal traders saturating the city streets. Open streets account for 73.4% of all the traders, while bus stations constitute 11%. The rest of the traders, mobile hawkers and those based in the designated markets combined, constitute the rest. The government plan to construct about 12 markets in various divisions of Nairobi to decongest the CBD, should be speeded up to accommodate the rising number of traders. 


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