Hawkers, vendors, a Key part of the economy

Known variously as the subterranean, the hidden, underground, shadow, secondary, black, invisible or parallel sector, this sector  faces many challenges.

The growth of the informal sector in general and the vendors and hawkers in particular, is mainly the result of failure by the formal sector to provide employment opportunities for everybody. Kempe Ronald Hope, Sr, says that it has grown "because of the failure of the developing countries to formally make the kind of economic progress that would have allowed for, among other benefits, low urban unemployment rates, a reduction in national poverty rates wages and salaries that kept pace with inflation..."