StreetNet International published an open letter for their affiliates calling government around the worlds, local and national, to put in place measures and resources to keep all workers and their income safe; to provide a universal health care and a basic emergency living cash grant to all informal economy workers and the most vulnerable categories of population regardless of their nationality and residency status; and for all informally engaged workers and the most vulnerable to be exempted from the bills for utilities during a time of coronavirus crisis.
Following the destruction of vendors’ stalls in Kwekwe, Mbare, Machipisa and other areas by the local authorities, ZCIEA calls for the government to stop the criminalization and stigmatization of informal workers and traders and instead recognize their right to earn a livelihood to support themselves and their families.
KENASVIT, a network of Micro and Small Enterprises in Kenya, calls on the Government of Kenya to take urgent and immediate measures to ensure the full protection of economic and social rights of the informal sector in the context of the COVID-19 crisis.
A Joint Statement by 10 South African organizations, representing millions of informal workers, called on government in March to act through financial support and other means.
On March 25, South Africa ordered a country-wide lockdown. Days earlier, Rosheda Muller, President of South African Informal Traders Alliance (SAITA), wrote an open letter to South Africa’s government: “Any halt or suspension of trade would be catastrophic to the livelihoods of thousands upon thousands of informal workers and their families.”
However, the lockdown excluded informal vendors as well as waste pickers. Workers in both groups provide essential services in public spaces, and they rely on their earnings for survival. WIEGO worked with organizations of these workers, including SAITA and the Joburg Informal Traders Platform, helping them advocate to be allowed to work.
As a result, the government revised its Disaster Management Regulations on April 2 to include “spaza shops and informal food traders, with written permission from a municipal authority” in the definition of essential services. (However, cooked food vendors of all types remain unable to operate.) Some municipalities resisted, saying their offices were closed or even that they lacked the necessary stationery to issue permits for food vendors.