Street Vendor Licensing and Permits — Reflections from StreetNet International

By Pat Horn on October 08, 2018

StreetNet International is a federation of organizations of street vendors and informal traders with 50 affiliates in 46 countries in Africa, Asia, the Americas and (Eastern) Europe. Drawing on StreetNet's knowledge base of different trading regulation systems, this Resource Document considers national contextual factors – legal, political and economic – that shape vendor regulatory regimes and broad trends in local governments’ approaches, the core elements of existing licensing and permitting regimes. Rather than identifying “inclusive” or “better” practises, which are context specific and often short lived, the paper focuses on appropriate processes and underlying principles. This is with a view to enhance the knowledge base, but also to guide further work on this issue.

The document identifies areas of further research including:
• A comparison between legal and administrative systems of countries of the Global North and the Global South. The mindset of authorities in the Global South continue to inform ideas from the Global North.
• Analysis of the impact of decentralization and devolution of powers and resources to local government on the workplace security of street vendors. StreetNet affiliates’ report that street traders often find their workplace security de-stabilized due to conflicts between different levels of government. A factor to consider is revenue streams. For example, in Dantokpa Market in Cotonou, market levies are an important factor in the conflict between national government and the municipality.
• In countries where national government has an obligation to ensure the right to work (e.g. Nicaragua, Zambia, Tanzania, China), how does this translate to local government policies, laws and actions?
• Analysis of different legal and administrative systems — francophone, lusophone and anglophone countries — and their implications for vendor regulation and livelihoods.
• A comparative study of urban spatial approaches to street trader regulation versus business registration approaches, and various hybrids of the two.
• The way in which other issues are integrated into the permitting and licensing of informal trade, most notably trade and competition regulation, and intellectual property rights management and immigration control. A critical priority is to capture the main elements needed for a just system of public administration that is easy for street vendors to comply with and assures their workplace security. To achieve this, further work is needed to understand the public administration systems for implementation of licences, permits and revenue payment.

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