Informal Trade

This is a page on informal trade, informal retail, informal markets.

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Eswatini

We noticed a growing trend of retail businesses switching to social media to advertise services for shopping and home deliveries to minimize movement of people to shopping centers. However, as a lab we noticed with concern that informal traders, rural based and small businesses do not seem to have an online presence. This is an area that we would be exploring further to ensure that food systems particularly are mapped to determine the state of food security in the country.

Source: AccLab Blog

This excerpt is also potentially relevant to: Informal Workers

Kenya

The UNDP Accelerator Lab in Kenya has recently been exploring different themes related to the impact of COVID-19 on livelihoods in Kenya, such as advocating for a focus on digital inclusion as a response and analyzing the impact on informal traders. We believe that Kenya’s culture of innovation, as shown during the pandemic through locally made ventilators and hands-free hand-washing stations, can and should be a key strategic part of developing sustainable livelihoods moving forwards.

Source: AccLab Blog

This excerpt is also potentially relevant to: Informal Workers

Namibia

In Namibia, COVIDー19 lockdowns have negatively impacted the informal sector, especially street vendors who depend on a daily income. The UNDP Namibia Accelerator Lab partnered with Tambula, a local online shop to provide informal traders with a digital commercial platform to reach more clients. The platform launched on 18 May 2020 is connecting the local informal market to a digital platform.  

Source: AccLab Blog

This excerpt is also potentially relevant to: Digitization, Informal Workers, Informal Sectors

I have transitioned from being the Deputy Resident Representative who approves concepts into a user of the Tambula Online shop, and I must admit, it is a wonderful opportunity on many fronts. It supports the local informal retail sector and those participating in it to maintain viable business ventures; it supports a technological start-up that is oriented towards social entrepreneurship, and it satisfies consumer demand. Right from my office, I was able to place an order for carrots, onions, eggs, and pears.  Whilst I faced some initial glitches to get myself registered on the platform, my experience was a great one.  I did not have to jump into a car, drive miles, consume harmful fossil fuels, find parking, and expose myself to the coronavirus.  All within 30 minutes, I was able to register on the platform, place an order and have my supplies delivered to my residence. 

Source: AccLab Blog

This excerpt is also potentially relevant to: Informal Sectors

This initiative is an online option designed to keep the businesses of informal retailers in markets going by connecting them onto a digital space.  A small start-up called Tambula Online Shop had recently just launched and the Namibia Accelerator Lab saw an opportunity to build back better through collaboration. The Lab approached Tambula with the idea to create an online portal for consumers who desired items from the market and their usual street vendors at a time when these vendors had been taken off the streets due to COVID-19 restrictions.  The initiative benefits the consumers who can remain in the safety of their home during the COVID-19 lockdown as well as the informal retailers who now have access to customers who they ordinarily would not have had access to by also safely working from home. Having encouraged my team to take the bold step and launch admittedly knowing the idea was not perfect, we have an intervention that all parties are now impressed with. After all, this is what experiments are all about and this is why the lab exists. We launch, we learn, we adjust, we improve but we must never wait until the concept is perfect for us to start.Reflections

Source: AccLab Blog

This excerpt is also potentially relevant to: Informal Workers, Informal Businesses

South Africa

The project experimented with an alternative method of food distribution by supplying money through a cloud-based transactional platform in the form of vouchers. These vouchers could be redeemed at the major retailers near the communities, and the project additionally registered local spaza shops and informal traders as vendors for voucher redemption in an effort to support the local and informal economy.

Source: AccLab Blog

This excerpt is also potentially relevant to: Informal Workers, Informal Businesses

Zimbabwe

Within the informal economy, vendors are a subcategory of special interest to the Accelerator Lab as vending is often the only source of livelihood for the most vulnerable populations in urban society. So, when COVID struck and the government announced lockdown measures in March, the Lab began wondering what the impact would be for food supply chains and vendors operating in informal markets.We sought to answer two key questions. First, what factors affect vendors, informal markets, and agricultural supply chains in Zimbabwe? Secondly, how and to what extent has COVID-19 exacerbated these vulnerabilities? We also wondered which datasets could give us a record of market performance pre COVID and during the lockdown. The Accelerator Lab embarked on partner mapping exercise which led to the discovery of Knowledge Transfer Africa, Magic Leap and Flow Immersive.

Source: AccLab Blog

Leveraging the expertise of three private sector partners, and support from the UNDP Global Innovation Team, the Lab went ahead with the experiment to test whether visualizing daily informal market activities across Zimbabwe could yield insights that answered the two questions raised above. With the guidance of vendors and KTA, the Lab created a food basket of eight market produce that constitute daily necessities. The products were handpicked to provide us with an overview of market sentiment. The basket consisted of the following tabled items.Category

Source: AccLab Blog

This excerpt is also potentially relevant to: Informal Activities

On the morning of the 30th March 2020, Zimbabwean cities woke up like ghost towns, due to the Government of Zimbabwe’s decision to place the nation on a 21-day lockdown, as a means of preventing the spread of COVID-19. The decision led to Zimbabweans retreating to their homes and cities being virtually empty, surprisingly to some even informal vendor markets complied. Like many cities around the world, all measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus from national quarantines to school closures, have been taken.The biggest question being asked globally is whether a lockdown and social distancing measures will work in Africa, given the characteristics of many African cities. For example, it is estimated that about 2/3rds of Nairobi’s population lives on just 6% of its land. In Kampala, 71% of households sleep in a single room, and in Zimbabwe the informal sector contributes significantly to the development of the Zimbabwean economy (estimated over 60% of GDP and 85% of jobs). Understandably vendors need to take to the streets for their livelihood, farmers need to make sure their product moves on a daily basis and Zimbabwean citizens rely on both these supply groups for goods as a more affordable alternative. As a result, it took a mere 24 hours for Zimbabweans to get back the streets to move products (tomatoes, potatoes etc) and to sell, through markets and vending spots which posed an urgent question on health and safety. The question many were asking was how sustainable it would be for the supply chain to completely locked down, especially as people require uninterrupted food supply during the lockdown period. The President of Zimbabwe went on to announce that all farmers and traders must continue to deliver produce to food markets, including those markets that supply our cities, towns, and growth points. This would help preserve jobs, livelihoods, and access to food especially during the lockdown.

Source: AccLab Blog

This excerpt is also potentially relevant to: Informal Sectors

The Accelerator Lab is utilising this opportunity to experiment with upgrading a management platform, where stakeholders from the private sector collaborate to effectively manage the food supply chain. The management platform’s core purpose is to facilitate servicing of the last mile delivery through a variety of stakeholders who include SME’s, vendors, transport providers, and possibly kombis (public transport vans) that are currently idle. The system will ride on more than 20 informal markets and hundreds of vending sites across the country, utilising stakeholder data and databases to link digital innovation with the supply chain platform. The use of data and digital innovation will enable enhanced discovery, access, availability, exploitation, and provisioning of information within to support the efficiency and tracking of supply chain activities. As additional (larger) data sets become available on the platform, this will in addition provide an opportunity for utilising digital tools such as virtual reality/augmented reality in the mapping and management of the supply chain; especially landing this data under multiple Country Office programme activities for sustainability and continuation of the platform. The approach also includes upgrading current market infrastructure, establishing WASH points, marking off social distancing norms etc. to enable adherence to health and safety norms required in the COVID response,

Source: AccLab Blog

The Reimagining a post COVID19 Society Campaign forms part of several activities being conducted by the Accelerator Lab focused on the impact of the coronavirus. As part of its work to understand the impact of COVID19 in the informal sector, the Accelerator Lab is collecting data on the country’s food supply chains and informal markets to assess how vendors, farmers and consumers have been affected over the past 7 months.-----

Source: AccLab Blog

This excerpt is also potentially relevant to: Informal Sectors