2013-05-20T23:14:38-04:00 Caroline Elliot http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=caroline-elliott Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Caroline Elliot Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2788296 2013-03-01T07:13:13-05:00 2013-05-01T05:12:01-04:00

Caroline Elliot http://www.huffingtonpost.com/caroline-elliott/
The country is awash with political campaigning - posters stuck everywhere, giant billboards, people decked out in party colours and constant noise, as yet another loud hailer attached to a vehicle amplifies campaign messages.

Behind this fanfare, many of the millions of street vendors in the country have been counting down the days with a mix of anticipation, fear and dread.

Last time hundreds of thousands of street vendors literally lost everything in the madness of post-election violence. Many had to flee their homes, leaving all their possessions, never to return.

Since the chaos of running from her burning village, Agnes Muraya, 62, has never seen three of her sons. To make matters worse, her husband Peter, who was a truck driver, fell and hurt his leg. In the appalling conditions of camps for internally displaced people, which were their home for the next two years, his leg rapidly became infected and had to be amputated, putting him permanently out of work.

Both of them now have to survive on the K150 (£1.15) she makes a day selling tea at a Nakuru bus stand in the Rift Valley.

Regina Nyambura, 50, lost all her stock of children's clothes. Without insurance or any protection, she needed years to rebuild her business.

Samson Kimonge, 43, a water and juice vendor to thirsty commuters and travellers at the ferry linking Mombasa to the mainland beach resorts, had all his coolers and storage facilities broken. With no savings, or alternative means to make a living, he was forced to sell nearly everything he owned to restart his stall.

The violence of the last election has imprinted a survivor condition, where events are defined as those which happened before or later. For many vendors later is synonymous with squeezed profits and increased competition from more people being compelled to trade.

But, since the 2007 polls, Kenya has undergone considerable political reforms, such as a new constitution. Huge strides have come in recognising the right of street vendors to trade, meaning they will no longer suffer harassment and discrimination.

War on Want's partner, the Kenya National Alliance of Street Vendors and Informal Traders, just scored a massive victory in the passing of the Micro and Small Enterprises Bill, following almost a decade-long drive. This law will promote, regulate and develop the sector.

Among other substantial changes promised to vendors are that areas in all cities will be set aside and developed for them, as well as representation in government decisions.

These major gains require a stable, peaceful Kenya to be implemented and for the changes to take effect. Vendors are now being allowed to trade freely without harassment. Yet, ironically, their earnings are even lower, as consumers hold on to their money in fear of violence.

The horror of the previous ballots seems to have left a superstition in the country - that the word 'election' cannot be used without being followed within the next 30 seconds by 'peace'. While opinion research shows the two leading political parties neck and neck, for street vendors to feel these reforms the result of the election must first be peace.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2238044 2012-12-04T13:15:44-05:00 2013-02-03T05:12:01-05:00

Caroline Elliot http://www.huffingtonpost.com/caroline-elliott/
Nearly 5,000 people from across the African continent, including government ministers , mayors, local authorities representatives, civil society organisations and trade unions, have banded together at the summit to debate the challenges local governments face in the midst of urbanisation and decentralisation across the continent. Such groupings all too often lead to situations where for example, policies dealing with shack settlements are discussed by those whose experience of shacks is based on statistics, with no one present who has ever really been to a shack settlement, let alone lived in one.

For this very reason two of Abahlali's founding slogans are "Talk to us, not about us" and "Nothing for us, without us". They are at the summit to give this alternative voice and promote the right to the city for all, meaning that everyone should be allowed to live in the city, have access to the city including its services and be a part of shaping and changing the city.

Silencing and sidelining of local government's constituents can be even more insidious than denying people the right to be consulted and to participate in decisions affecting their lives. Other common means of silencing people include not giving them the means to live a life of dignity, evictions, and the marginalisation and criminalisation of associations of residents which are fighting for their rights.

In South Africa, where Abahlali is from, nearly one in three households are slum households. In Cape Town alone, up to 70% of these households do not have basic sanitation. Such settlements form a feature across African landscapes with nearly two-thirds of city dwellers in sub-Saharan Africa living in slums. Millions lack access to basic services and local authorities often refuse outright to extend services to these areas, putting people at risk of fires from illegal electricity connections and disease from lack of water and sanitation. Without a proper home, toilet and clean running water, it is a daily struggle for many across sub-Saharan Africa to lead a life of dignity.

Throughout the continent countless evictions take place on a daily basis and with the financial crisis and commodification of land, this trend has only been growing. In South Africa thousands were evicted in the run up to the World Cup and moved to so-called temporary relocation areas that are colloquially known as 'the tins' as they are made from tin containers. With the vast majority of those evicted to such areas left languishing there indefinitely miles from possibilities of work, healthcare and education, the naming of the settlements as temporary have proved to be a misnomer. Again South Africa is not unique. In Zimbabwe, 700,000 were left homeless in a programme of forced mass evictions under the guise of cleaning up the cities. Since 2000 more than 2 million Nigerians have been forcibly evicted from their homes with no adequate consultation, notice, compensation or provision of alternative accommodation. In Kenya, the millions who live in informal settlements have no security of tenure and face the daily risk of forced evictions from their homes. And this is just to mention a few instances.

To fight for a voice, demand a life of dignity and prevent evictions, residents' associations come together in a number of forms, from social movements of shack dwellers to tenants' associations. Too often such groups are marginalised and criminalised. Abahlali leaders and members have faced death threats, physical assaults and arrests. Their right to protest has frequently been denied, although they have continued to organise pickets and protest in defiance of tear gas and rubber bullets. In less extreme circumstances, groups which have come together precisely to lobby for their rights are ignored and excluded from being involved in decisions intimately affecting their everyday lives.

The International Alliance of Inhabitants and about ten organisations and movements including Abahlali representing poor residents across the continent are participating in Africities to lobby precisely for the rights of residents' associations and such collectives to be the primary actors in urban process. This needs to be done through participatory and inclusive planning policies and the recognition and empowerment of resident associations. Only through speaking for themselves can residents of cities start to have a right to the city, and be able to live, shape and change the cities they inhabit.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1764003 2012-08-10T09:47:18-04:00 2012-10-10T05:12:15-04:00

Caroline Elliot http://www.huffingtonpost.com/caroline-elliott/
But while Rudisha became the first man in history to run two laps of the track in under one minute and 41 seconds, and prime minister Raila Odinga announced Kenya's bid to host the greatest show on earth in 2024, many poor Kenyans continue to suffer.

The Kenya House showcase, at Stratford during the London Olympics, closes as the Games end on Sunday. But, amid plans to transform Nairobi into a major international financial hub - the showcase proclaims "Come experience a land of opportunity" - four in ten Kenyans live on less than 80p a day.

Since neoliberal state policies and rapid urbanisation allow little scope for jobs in the formal sector, 79 per cent of the labour force must try to eke out a living in the informal economy. Over 2.5 million Kenyans struggle to feed their families as street traders on low incomes - one in four of them women, often raising children - toiling without shelter under the blazing sun or in overcrowded markets. Yet the government denies such traders any legal protection, leaving them facing constant discrimination and harassment from local authorities, including confiscating the stock that represents their hopes for a brighter tomorrow. The absence of a legal framework protecting their rights has led to conflict, sometimes even resulting in the loss of life.

Street vendors rank among Kenyans hardest hit by increasing costs amid the global economic recession. A vendor in Nakuru, the provincial capital of the Rift Valley, told researchers: "One is forced to sell at a loss, though you have walked the entire breadth and length of the town, only to end up at your house empty handed." The study was conducted by Inclusive Cities, a collaboration of membership-based organisations of the working poor, international alliances of MBOs and support groups committed to improving the situation of the working poor. It asked individuals to report their major business costs and indicate whether these had risen, decreased or remained steady. Some 83 per cent of street traders reported that overall business costs had grown for those producing and/or selling both durable and non-durable goods. Many respondents said that both their main business costs, most often the price of raw materials or the cost of ready-made goods, and secondary business costs, such as transportation, utilities and market fees, had increased.

The recession has also driven mounting numbers of people into the informal sector, intensifying competition for large numbers of traders already vulnerable to the cold winds of financial crisis. Eighty-five per cent of street vendors interviewed for the Inclusive Cities research said more people had entered their segment, the highest response across the informal sector. One Kenyan vendor, admitting greater rivalry from sellers carrying and offering their goods, said: "Even spaces that were empty in town a year ago have been taken up by new entrants into hawking."

The economic slump's effect on hitherto regular formal employment is multiplying the burden on hundreds of thousands of women, now often their family's primary breadwinner, as well as undertaking disproportionate work at home. A woman speaking on behalf of War on Want's partner KENASVIT, the Kenya National Alliance of Street Vendors and Informal Traders, told the Inclusive Cities study: "For certain, women are bearing the brunt of this recession. Many of the women, especially those who are widowed or single mothers, have no external support. They are caring for children alone, with dwindling incomes. Now many must support relatives who come to them after losing their jobs. The women who are married tell us their husbands have given up. But these women cannot give up, for the sake of their children."

Today KENASVIT is fighting for the government to legalise street vending through the micro and small enterprises bill, now under discussion in the Kenyan parliament after pressure applied by the organisation. If passed, the bill will allow street vending under law and offer important safeguards to the country's millions of informal traders.

Moreover, KENASVIT aims to transform street vendors' operations into more formal small businesses, with all the protection that those afford. Besides organising and empowering informal workers, KENASVIT offers them training and access to credit in order to improve their businesses, as well as advocating for street vendors at all levels of government, lobbying for favourable policies and legislation.

Indeed, KENASVIT has created a national movement in 12 Kenyan cities out of the many smaller organisations which back street traders. And through KENASVIT's advocacy and lobbying, many traders have gained better trading spaces and improved working conditions.

Like Kenya's athletes, KENASVIT realises the race to success resembles more a marathon, than a sprint. But War on Want will continue to support millions of vulnerable street traders to the finishing line of freedom and justice.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1690096 2012-07-20T19:00:00-04:00 2012-09-19T05:12:38-04:00

Caroline Elliot http://www.huffingtonpost.com/caroline-elliott/
Cape Town's ground, known as Green Point Stadium - built for the 2010 World Cup while many locals on low incomes were forced into Blikkiesdorp shacks - showcased Manchester United, valued this week at £1.43 billion by the US magazine Forbes.

And in a week highlighted by Nelson Mandela's 94th birthday, Paul Simon, once notorious for breaking the cultural boycott on apartheid, marked South Africa's freedom with a return to Britain. When Simon played London's Royal Albert Hall a quarter of a century ago, he faced criticism for defying the boycott to record his bestselling album Graceland in South Africa with a galaxy of the country's musicians and groups. But, for 12 million South Africans who still lack decent homes since the state's birth of democracy in 1994, Simon's Hyde Park harmony with Kwazulu-Natal choralists Ladysmith Black Mambazo on the Graceland track Homeless is full of pathos.

While millions of children sang "happy birthday" to the former president known as Madiba - father in his Xhosa tribal language - Pretoria government spokesperson, Xolani Xundu cited three million homes to be built for South Africans. Yet for countless more who queued for days to fulfil dreams of voting their hero into office 18 years back, and much of the following generation, South Africa's place among the emerging world's economic powerhouses carries negligible meaning.

One in four people are unemployed, contrasted against 5.9 per cent for whites, and the proportion almost 49 per cent for young blacks - much worse joblessness than in powerhouses Brazil or India. And 42 per cent of the population live on less than two dollars a day, the internationally-acknowledged poverty line. Small wonder those who lost out when the £368 million Cape Town stadium rose say the cash should have been better spent.

South Africans across the country are donating 67 minutes of their time to commemorate the 67 years Mandela fought for the end of apartheid. In Durban, though, War on Want's partner, Abahlali baseMjondolo, chose to spend their 67 minutes protesting to demand inquiries into recent police violence and brutality. This is just one of more than 8,000 demonstrations that take place across South Africa every year, in response to some of the same old unfairness against which Mandela battled for six decades - high levels of inequality and state repression.

The gulf between rich and poor has barely altered since apartheid's demise, with whites still earning eight times more than blacks and South Africa now the second most unequal country around the globe. The housing deficit shows how little has changed, with just over eight million people living in so-called slums in 1994, and much the same number now..

Yet, when apartheid ended, the new government promised change and pledged to enshrine the right to housing in South Africa's constitution. So the 2.7 million houses constructed from 1994 to 2000 remain a long way short of keeping that vow. This shortfall owes more to the wrong priorities than available resources.

During the World Cup year of 2010, the government allocated 12.4 billion rand (1.8 billion dollars) to housing, but 17.4 billion rand (2.4 billion dollars) to host the championship. Rather than benefit the poor, the tournament saw thousands of poor South Africans evicted to transit camps miles from the city, with traders shut out of the games, and has left a legacy of stadiums that are costly white elephants.

Back in January, like Mandela's birthday, another milestone proved bitter-sweet for the nation. Tens of thousands of chanting and dancing revellers waved the green and gold colours of the African National Congress when Africa's oldest liberation movement celebrated its 100th anniversary. The stadium at Bloemfontein, transformed for the World Cup, overflowed with crowds hailing the centenary.

But half the country's people lives on just eight percent of the national income, according to the Congress of South African Trade Unions. And in the town of Clarens, stone-throwing protesters shattered the windows of a bus that was to take supporters to the celebrations in Bloemfontein, 160 miles away. The protesters called for the dismissal of ANC municipal leaders for denying them basic amenities, such as tap water.

Ministers have conceded their failure to return white-owned farmland to blacks - a central plank in the struggle for liberation.

In 1994 the government set its objective to redistribute 30 percent of agricultural land to blacks by 2014 - targeting a total of nearly 61 million acres (24.6 million hectares). Instead, the administration has bought only about six million hectares, of which a third has been resold by aspiring black farmers who failed to get enough support.

One melodic contemporary of Simon's, the world music trailblazer Peter Gabriel, also scored a chart hit with a single written as a tribute to Steve Biko, the black anti-apartheid campaigner who died after interrogation by white police. Four lines from the song retain a contemporary echo as others continue to struggle for justice:

You can blow out a candle
But you can't blow out a fire
Once the flames begin to catch
The wind will blow it higher]]>