Negotiating & advocating for the rights of informal cross-border traders: Successful engagements from West & Central Africa.
Throughout 2021 and 2022, StreetNet International developed a project to capacitate affiliated organizations in West and Central Africa to advocate and negotiate for the rights of informal cross-border traders.
The project started with a series of webinars between March-June 2021, to explore the issues of informal cross-border trade and encourage affiliates to identify transnational and cross-cutting problems, as well as particularities and differences.
After the end of the webinar series, StreetNet affiliates with common borders worked together to put their acquired knowledge into practical advocacy and negotiation activities, thus bettering conditions and policies for informal cross-border traders. Their experiences up to March 2022 were first documented in the publication “Advocating for informal cross-border trades Experiences from West & Central Africa”. This follow-up publication showcases the work of our affiliated organizations during the second round of negotiations, up to December 2022.
This project was developed in cooperation with SACBTA (South African Cross Border Trade Association), ITUC Africa (International Trade Unions Confederation – Africa), OTUWA (Organisation of Trade Unions in West Africa) and ATUMNET (African Trade Union Migration Network).
