Treat hawking as source of employment and revenue, not a nuisance

Hawkers display their wares at the backstreets on Nairobi's Central Business District.They are complaining of slow business because there is no purchasing power among the population attributed to high taxes.[Benard Orwongo,Standard

In Nairobi, from Gikomba market to Tom Mboya Street, Eastleigh to River Road, thousands of Kenyans wake up every morning to make a living in the streets as hawkers. These men and women, many of them youths and single mothers, form a pillar of the city's informal economy. They are the most unrecognised contributors to the daily trade, local supply chain, and the broader economy of the city, offering vital goods and services at minimal cost. But despite their significance and resilience, they remain marginalised, unrecognised and harassed by the city askaris, exposed to extortion, and perceived as a nuisance in the streets where they sustain themselves and contribute to the city’s economy.

Instead of criminalising these traders, it is time for the government, both the national and the county, to view street hawking as a source of employment and a legitimate economic activity for thousands of hustlers. Hawkers represent the very spirit of the hustler economy that Kenya Kwanza’s Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda seeks to uplift. They are not loiterers nor disruptors, but micro-investors. If properly supported, hawking can evolve into a structured and regulated economic sector that will offer employment opportunities to thousands of jobless youths in the cities.