Legal empowerment of street vendors in Afghanistan

 

Doel Mukerjee

Chief Technical Advisor

Improving laws and creating committees in which they have a voice

Sizable portions of citizens in Afghanistan suffer from extreme poverty and derive their livelihoods from the informal economy by selling valuable goods and services on the street. These ‘street vendors’ have limited access to broader economic opportunities and are especially vulnerable to uncertainties, such as corruption and violence, prevalent outside the rule of law. Street vendors have very few means to settle disputes apart from bribery and submission to powerful people and cannot make any legal claim or legal ownership over their businesses. Without legal guarantees or protections, street vendors remain in a continual state of legal vulnerability. Therefore, the legal empowerment of street vendors innovation acts as a mechanism for enhancing the legal status and legal identity of street vendors. The innovation aims at establishing sustainable policy level working groups charged with reviewing and amending national and local laws to clearly define the rights of street vendors as a method for improving their working conditions.

The innovation also works towards enhancing the business capacities of street vendors as well as strengthening street vendor Unions and Associations. Reinforcing the social and economic rights of individuals within the informal economy provides broader opportunities for social development of families and communities suffering from poverty as well as achieving lasting peace and security in Afghanistan.