Quick answer: Street vendors are people who sell goods or services in public spaces without a fixed shop: food, fruit, airtime, clothes, household goods and more. In Africa, where most jobs are informal, street vending is one of the most common ways to earn a living, especially for women and young people. Vendors face theft, confiscation, harassment, weather and no access to credit or insurance.
Who are street vendors?
Street vendors include:
- Fixed-spot vendors who sell from the same corner or stall every day
- Mobile vendors who walk or cycle through neighborhoods
- Market traders with a small space in an open market
- Cross-border traders who buy goods in another country to sell at home, like Mozambique's mukheristas
Examples of street vendors
| What they sell | Typical example |
|---|---|
| Fresh food | Tomatoes, onions, bananas from nearby farms |
| Cooked food | Grilled corn, fried snacks, tea and bread |
| Airtime and phone accessories | Mobile credit, chargers, cases |
| Clothes | Second-hand clothes from bulk bales |
| Household goods | Soap, oil, sugar in small quantities |
Selling in small quantities is key: buyers with little cash can buy one onion or one sachet of oil.
Why do so many people sell on the street?
The International Labour Organization found that 85.8% of employment in Africa is informal (ILO, 2018). Formal jobs are scarce, so people create their own work. Street vending needs little capital to start, no qualifications and no permission from an employer.
$25 plants a farmer's season in Zambézia.
Paid straight to the local seed shop. You get the receipt, a field photo and a harvest update.
A gift, not an investment. Not tax-deductible.
What challenges do street vendors face?
- Theft and confiscation. Goods can be stolen or seized by authorities, wiping out a week's capital.
- Harassment and bribes. Vendors often pay informal "fees" to keep selling.
- No credit. Most start with personal savings and cannot get bank loans. A study of 403 informal traders in Maputo found the overwhelming majority started with their own savings and faced major barriers to bank credit (Chikanda and Raimundo, 2017).
- Weather and health. Sun, rain and long hours, with no sick pay.
- Competition. Many vendors sell the same goods, which keeps margins thin.
What helps street vendors?
- Savings groups such as Mozambique's xitique, which give access to lump sums without a bank
- Mobile money to store cash safely and pay suppliers
- Clear, fair rules on where vendors can sell, instead of sudden evictions
- Cheaper supply through links with local farmers, cutting out middlemen
The link to farming
Many vendors sell produce grown by smallholder farmers. When farmers harvest more, vendors have more to sell and city families pay less. Supporting farmers supports the whole informal food chain.
At MBC, a sponsorship buys a named farmer's seed and fertilizer, with the shop receipt sent to you. Sponsor a farmer from $25, or read What Is the Informal Sector?
Sponsorships are gifts, not investments, and are not tax-deductible.
Sources: ILO, Women and men in the informal economy (2018) · Chikanda and Raimundo, Informal Entrepreneurship and Cross-Border Trade Between Mozambique and South Africa (2017)
