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.
The informal sector remains Kenya’s largest employer. Street hawking is the most visible form of the informal sector and serves as the entry point to entrepreneurship, especially for Gen Zs and women who lack access to formal employment and large capital to set up businesses. If supported with a clear policy framework, smart infrastructure, and digital tools, street hawking can help reduce urban poverty, enhance livelihoods, and empower youths and women. The absence of a structured and modernised approach to street hawking is what breeds disorder and not the act of hawking itself.
It is time to re-imagine the role of street hawking in the economy. The county government of Nairobi and other cities in Kenya should initiate a smart zoning strategy that designates certain streets for specific types of products and items. For example, in Nairobi, River Road and Luthuli streets could be zoned for clothing and electronics vendors respectively. Sections of the streets should also be considered for fresh produce and food items, while hand-made crafts should be stationed near cultural centres such as museums, and other tourist corridors. A zoning approach would reduce congestion, increase order, and allow targeted infrastructure to be provided by the government, both the national and the county governments, based on the nature of the goods traded in each zonal area.
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Regrettably, hawkers in major urban centres operate under fear and intimidation. They are frequently evicted and harassed, their stock destroyed or confiscated, and their rights abused. Mothers trying to make a living are often chased in the streets, humiliated by enforcement officers. This is not urban governance but a failure of imagination and lack of empathy for human life and dignity. The use of digital vendor IDs, mapping hawkers’ locations through a mobile application, and introducing structured compliance systems can turn chaos. Such a system will enhance traceability, improve revenue collection, and reduce arbitrary enforcement.
Concerns about traffic obstruction by hawkers are valid, but also manageable. The obstruction is a result of poor planning and management, and cannot be blamed primarily on the hawkers. Zoning of streets will allow order and free traffic movement as buyers will have designated areas for different sets of products and items.
Nairobi and other cities can also designate certain streets for hawkers during certain hours, say from 5pm to 10pm, to manage mobility in high-traffic areas, transforming them into pedestrian zones. This balance between mobility and trade is the hallmark of modern city planning.
Modernisation lies not only in the forceful evictions and harassment of hardworking Kenyans but also in having an inclusive policy framework that treats hawking as a source of employment and a source of revenue for a county.
Finally, askaris must be retrained to change them from enforcement units to compliance units through introduction of accountability systems, such complaint lines and customer service desks.
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