Abstract: Street vending activity is considered as an important source of informal employment resulting from lack of limited lucrative employment, hence leading many people to move from their villages to cities searching for employment where they expect to get better pay. In Rwanda, the street vending activity is considered as illegal under the motive of keeping clean Kigali City and the secondary cities. To attend to living conditions of people involved in the street vending activities, Government of Rwanda has initiated a project of locating them in formal markets. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the contribution of this initiative of locating street traders in formal markets on their living conditions. It employed a descriptive study design on a sample of 372 street traders drawn from around 4,647 street vendors relocated in formal market in Kigali City. With the F-statistic of 27.617 and p-value of 0.000, findings confirm that locating street vendors at a well-known market and safer place has a significant effect on the improvement of their living conditions at all levels of significance. However, the amount of Frw 50,000 given to street vendors as starting up assistance is perceived as small to sustain their business. Similarly, the backward movement of some to street vending activity is to be strictly discouraged because not only hamper the initiative but also can reduce the potential multiplicative effect of the amount that government gives as support to located street vendors.

Abstract: In the last decade, Africa has experienced unprecedented increase in unemployment and poverty rates. The situation has worsened especially in the urban areas due to COVID-19 pandemic containment measures and increased rural urban migration in search of opportunities which have been shrinking over time. Consequently, many urban dwellers opted for street vending as the main source of their livelihood. Despite this fact, street vendors seem to struggle for recognition. The Aim of this study was to examine the contributions of government policies and regulation on socio-economic empowerment of Street vendors in urban areas of Kenya. It was guided by Development as Freedom Approach. Descriptive cross-sectional survey research design was adopted. A sample size of 384 street vendors from Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu Cities. Multistage sampling was employed. Primary data was collected using face to face questionnaire survey, interview guide, and observation guide. Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics with the help of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 24. The study revealed a negative significant relationship between government rules and regulations on socio economic empowerment of street vendors. It recommended that policy makers should enact supportive policies that will lead to improvement in working conditions of street vendors especially trading on public space; identification and legislation of all street vendors and tracking systems for street vendors in hostile working environments to enable them meet their roles.