Pandemics and informal work in Urban Africa

The research project "We’ll starve before we get sick!" Short- and long-term effects of the corona pandemic on informal workers in urban Africa examined the impacts of the global COVID-19 crisis on urban societies in Africa. In particular, the study explored the short and long term social, economic and political effects of government strategies to curb the pandemic on informal workers (particularly street and market vendors), and how these workers responded and coped with such effects during and in the aftermath of the crisis. The study examined the following research questions in two urban settings – Maputo (Mozambique) and Lagos (Nigeria): (1) What governmental prevention strategies were deployed in the context of the pandemic threat that impacted on informal workers? What were the logics behind government interventions targeting these groups? How did these strategies evolve beyond the crisis? (2) What were the short- and longer-term effects of governmental prevention strategies on the lives of informal workers (their livelihoods, social networks, associational life etc)? How do effects differ for different groups (e.g. according to gender and age)? (3) How do street and market vendors respond to, cope with and possibly recover from the governmental prevention strategies? The study used qualitative methods. Interviews were conducted with a diversity of street and market vendors (of different ages, genders and types of business), with their leaders, as well as with public officials of relevance.

Vendors were particularly targeted by governments during the Covid-19 pandemic in both Lagos and Maputo. The nature of those interventions and their impacts were however highly differentiated. Compared to market vendors, street vendors were particularly vulnerable in both cities. They were forcefully displaced or banned from the streets, with police harassment continuing beyond the pandemic. Generally composed of a younger population, this group often sought new spaces with lower levels of enforcement, as a coping mechanism, and were thus more likely to contravene and evade pandemic restrictions due to their high mobility. In Maputo, the authorities banned (previously authorized) vendors from central streets and forced them into markets or to the periphery of the city, with severe impacts on their livelihoods and social networks. Many eschewed unviable sites and re-occupied the sidewalks in the city center. Women were at a disadvantage and many sought less dangerous (and less profitable) spaces. In this context, the pandemic marked a shift towards a ‘necropolitical governance’ whereby the state attempted to permanently undo street vending and modernize public space in the city center. This shift included political destitution, with the deliberate destruction of a well-established associational life among the street vendors and the end of dialogue with the authorities. In Lagos, street vendors lacked structured associations from the start, as thus negotiation channels with the authorities.

Market vendors in the two cities were largely allowed to operate during the pandemic. In both cases, there were associations in the markets that assumed important roles in pandemic prevention. Faced with enormous challenges, local governments delegated the implementation of pandemic regulations to these non-state actors. Among others, these actors introduced vending on alternate days to decrease congestion, which reduced vendors’ incomes and increased tensions in the markets. But in so doing, the associations kept the markets open, facilitating both the vendors’ survival and the supply of basic goods to the urban populations. In Lagos, the mandate and authority of associational and traditional leaders expanded in several markets. However, institutional structures and governance relations varied greatly between markets, exposing varying levels of compliance and uneven governance capacities. New economic shocks made post-pandemic recovery very difficult for most vendors.

The social, economic and political effects of pandemic prevention strategies on informal workers were thus considerable, although varied. In the studied cities, street vendors carried a disproportionate share of the social and economic burdens caused by governmental strategies. The findings suggest that the implemented spatial bans and repressive measures contributed to a deepening of social inequalities in these cities. Preventive strategies in the event of future pandemics ought to take into consideration the precarious realities of informal workers, recognizing their role in society.

The research was funded by FORMAS (grant number 2020-02029).

Researchers: Ilda Lindell (PI) and Onyanta Adama. Department of Human Geography, Stockholm University, Sweden.