Informal traders need capacitation

VENDORS Initiative for Social and Economic Transformation (Viset) was in Masvingo on March 11 2021, for an informal traders accountability agenda (ITAA) programme to raise awareness on constitutionalism and encourage a culture of accountability by office bearers through constructive engagement between the governed and the governing authority. ITAA intends to capacitate informal traders and vendors to shape their operating spaces by proactively engaging local councils and police, as well as strengthen vendors’ abilities to influence good governance and transparency at a national level through engagement on matters of national interest.

The objectives of the intervention are as follows:

● To improve informal traders’ constitutional socio-economic and human rights literacy, to ensure better engagement on socio-economic issues and safeguard the sector against abuse.

● To increase informal trader/vendor agency and engagement with solution holders at the local and national levels on issues that affect the informal sector.

● To enhance informal sector capacity for evidence-based policy engagement and pro-active generation of policy, regulatory and legislative alternatives.

The teach-in was attended by 30 informal traders drawn from Viset’s leadership structures known as the socio-economic champions (SOCHAMPS). Masvingo town has 30 informal traders’ markets and of this number, 25 were represented during the training. The SOCHAMPs were taken through the Constitution, in particular insofar as it relates to socio-economic rights. There was particular interest from participants with regards to the right to administrative justice, section 68 as they wanted to find out their recourse pertaining to the demolitions that were undertaken by local authorities countrywide during the COVID-19 lockdown.

The plenary session revealed that participants were indeed aware of their rights as enshrined in the Constitution, but were lacking at local level organisation on how to approach solution holders.

Viset executive director Samuel Wadzai urged the SOCHAMPs to take time to cascade the trainings to their fellow informal traders who could not be part of the initial training.

Vendors Initiative for Social and Economic Transformation