This Sixth International Congress of StreetNet:
Acknowledging the beneficial provisions of the New Urban Agenda and The City We Want for informal workers
But noting the following challenges informal workers face despite these positive provisions in the New Urban Agenda:
- Street vendors and other informal workers all over the world are hard pressed to access adequate working spaces, are continually pushed out of existing markets and work-clusters, are subjected to violent evictions and illegal seizures of their goods and assets as well as whimsical destruction of same
- City and national governments across the word are pushing out street vendors and informal workers from their work spaces and clusters to make way for poorly designed and unaffordable city malls
- Climate change and the accompanying destructive green- house effects is pushing out farmers from their farmlands into the cities that are already faced with serious constraints on work-spaces
- Street vendors and informal workers often lack basic business management skills, are slow to adapt new simple technologies that can boost their productivity, and often disregard simple occupational health and safety measures that protect against hazards and accidents at work
- Street vendors and informal workers are usually excluded from decision – making processes that affect their work by most urban and municipal governments
- Street vendors are often treated with a lot of disrespect, harassed, and easily criminalized and subjected to arbitrary taxation, extortion and illegal arrests, sometimes by mafia gangs
- Street vendors and informal workers are also excluded from social protection measures including the right to old age care and support through inclusive pensions system, maternal care and support for women working in the informal economy as well as sickness and disability care and support systems.
The Congress therefore resolves that the following measures should be adopted as basis for continued advocacy work in our various countries:
- Access to Work Space: The right to work with inclusive regulated access to work spaces to within designated work clusters, markets, road setbacks and side – walks that are affordable, with basic municipal services including electricity, drinkable water, sanitation, storage facilities and, day care centers as well as right the right of tenure.
- The basic human and workersrights of street vendors and informal workers should be respected while violence and harassment against informal street vendors should be vigorously combated through litigations, mass protests and other civil actions. Forced evictions that prevent urban poor to survive and maintain their livelihoods must be stopped.
- Representation: informal economy representatives should participate in decision-making processes about urban policies and laws that affect them. The Indian 2014 Act on Street Vendors Livelihoods Protection provides a good template for street vendors in other countries to adapt especially the provisions for City Vending Committees which include 40% street vendors representation. However, it is stressed that informal worker organizations should not be satisfied with laws and policies alone but work very hard to achieve implementation of these laws and policies.
- Training: city government has the responsibility to support capacity building trainingsincluding, skills upgrading, business management, as well as occupational health & safety trainings for street vendors and other informal workers.
- Climate change: impacts of climate change are affecting rural areas in several countries and forcing rural workers into cities where they resort to street vending, putting more pressures on limited urban spaces.
- Access to credit: City and municipal governments should provide credits on affordable terms and facilitate private and cooperative initiatives to provide affordable credits for street vendors and informal workers.
PROPOSED : NEST Nepal
SECONDED : MUFIS Malawi
