Closure of markets undermine informal economy

A government decision to close a number of markets in the Angolan capital, Luanda, has sparked clashes with police and elicited protests from aid workers. The population of Luanda has grown eight-fold over the last three decades as rural populations fled the fighting in the countryside for the relative safety of the capital. Lacking skills and education, most of the new city dwellers turned to buying and selling on the informal market. Today the parallel economy is believed to employ between 60 and 70 percent of working Angolans, around half of whom are women. At least four people died and several more were injured in recent clashes between police and angry market traders, who say their livelihoods are being threatened by the clean-up campaign. The provincial government argues that many of these markets are unsafe, unclean, cause traffic congestion and are an eyesore. While development workers agree, they say it has harmed the informal economy, which helps feed the urban poor, because the markets were shut without alternative arrangements being made, or proper consideration of the impact on the lives of the traders, their suppliers and customers. "These markets have been closed without consultation; people weren't warned, they weren't provided with alternative places, and were given no assistance with moving," said one aid worker. "The result is that there is a high level of civic tension in the city... It's created a bad image of heavy-handed action," he added. RISING TENSIONS While the main opposition party, UNITA, agrees with the government's reasoning, they disagree with the way it has carried out the operation. "UNITA agrees with closing these markets, because people do not work in good conditions. We agree that they should be moved to a different place and be better organised, but we must have alternatives to guarantee the livelihoods of these people," said UNITA spokesman Adalberto Costa Junior. He said the situation had the potential to become extremely volatile, with both security forces and locals holding firearms. "We have armed police and armed civilians: the situation is very dangerous. We must try to resolve it with dialogue, not with violence ... before this happens again elsewhere," he told IRIN. Luanda has been relatively peaceful since the end of the civil war in April 2002, but tensions have risen since early this year, when the new provincial administration started its "clean-up" drive. The aim was to set up a more effective rubbish clearing system, but the campaign soon spread to curbing the activities of street traders, which meant shutting down markets, prompting many stallholders to revolt. Local media published pictures of vandalised public buses, burnt tyres and road blocks around Estalagem market in the working-class suburb of Viana, where tens of thousands of people, mainly women, were trying to earn a living. They were not appeased by the government's plan to build a formal market to accommodate the vendors. The official Angola Press agency quoted local administrator Julio de Carvalho as saying that "Estalagem was an informal market and it's a goal of the provincial administration to finish with informal markets and ensure that most of Luanda's markets become formal". However, he admitted that informal markets were an important source of income for a large number of unemployed Angolans. Meanwhile, in Rocha Pinto near Luanda's airport, vendors defied an order to close and were continuing to sell their goods. The government also reportedly plans to shut the large Roque Santeiro market, dubbed "the Wall Street of Angola", where tens of thousands of people buy and sell everything from coffins to bananas, and commodity prices and the informal exchange rate are set. Roque Santeiro already has a reputation for being a dangerous, unpredictable place, and many fear even greater violence, should the police attempt to enforce a shutdown order there. ENGINE OF GROWTH Aid workers highlighted the importance of informal markets in Angola's post-war economy. "For most poor families, their survival strategy is centred around working in the markets and the informal sector," one development worker told IRIN. But the effects of the clampdown are much more far-reaching than the immediate impact on vendors. "These markets are major outlets for Angolan produce; for fish and agricultural produce, which is now starting to be produced from the agricultural green belt outside of Luanda. So, really, they have an important function in stimulating the local economy," the development worker added. Closing the markets has also hindered the work of organisations such as Development Workshop (DW), Banco Sol and the Ministry for Women's Promotion, who have invested time and effort in microfinance initiatives. "Those private sector and development programmes aimed at trying to transform the informal market into a formal market through microcredit have all been undermined," said an aid official. "[Development agency] clients have been robbed of their livelihoods, and it's feared that these activities will contribute to the deepening urban poverty in Luanda." Allan Cain, the director of DW, said he was concerned about the impact that the closing of informal markets could have on Angola's post-war economy. "The transformation of a war economy into a post-war economy involves investing in improving the informal market, transforming it so that businesses have access to credit, can be registered, and can take part in training and development programmes," he told IRIN. "It is important to upgrade working conditions by building new, improved, more hygienic markets, but not by eliminating the informal market by force," Cain noted. Closing the markets coincides with emergence of big new supermarkets, which sell produce imported from abroad that only the elite few can afford. "That means there are [fewer] outlets for the agricultural commodities being grown in the fields surrounding the city. There are fruits and vegetables rotting in the fields," said one aid worker.