Street food and income generation for poor households in Kinshasa

Environment&Urbanization Vol 13 No 2 October 2001 233

STREET FOOD

Street food and incomegeneration for poorhouseholds in Kinshasa

Guillaume Iyenda

SUMMARY: This paper describes the role of street food production and sale inthe livelihoods of 256 food sellers in Kinshasa, including who within each householdundertakes the work, the incomes received and profits gained, and the role of theincome in households’ livelihoods. It also describes the context in which increasingnumbers of people have had to turn to self-production, with the decline in formalsector employment and cuts in government jobs (and incomes). Most street foodenterprises were the sole livelihood source for households. For virtually all womensellers, their husbands were unemployed, sick, disabled or dead. Many men sellersturned to street foods because they had lost jobs in the formal economy. Most streetfood enterprises produced low incomes but allowed households to meet their basicconsumption needs.

I. INTRODUCTION

THIS PAPER REPORTS on research on the production and sale of streetfood in Kinshasa in the context of the decline in formal employment inboth the public and private sectors in the Democratic Republic of theCongo (Congo DR). The study considers the contribution of street foodactivities to the livelihoods of poor urban households and to the range ofinformal activities that characterize life in Kinshasa, the capital and muchthe largest city in Congo DR.

II. BACKGROUND

a. The context of sub-Saharan Africa

OVER THE NEXT 25 years, the urban population of Africa is expected toincrease from 310 million to over 800 million. During the same period, bycontrast, the rural population is projected to increase from 521 million toabout 690 million.(1) In Congo DR, it is estimated that by the middle of thetwenty-first century more than 50 per cent of inhabitants will live in urbanareas.(2)

One of the main issues raised by this increase in urban populationrelates to hunger and under-nutrition as a result of poverty. Indeed,across Africa, from Somalia to Sudan to Congo DR, few effective solu-tions have been found to the issues of hunger, sustainable income and

Guillaume Iyenda is a PhDstudent in developmentsociology at the Centre forDeveloping Areas Research(CEDAR), Royal Holloway,University of London andspecializes in urbanpoverty and sustainableurban livelihoods. He haswritten articles and carriedout research on poverty, theinformal sector anddevelopment in the theDemocratic Republic of theCongo.

Address: CEDAR, RoyalHolloway, University ofLondon, Egham, SurreyTW20 OEX, UK; e mail:[email protected] [email protected]

1. UNCHS (1996), An Urbanising World: Global Report on HumanSettlements, OxfordUniversity Press, Oxford,page 447.

2. UNFPA (1994), State of theWorld’s Population in 1994,UNFPA, Washington, page 65.

poverty. “Although sub-Saharan Africa is one of the world’s major producersof agricultural commodities, the region is no longer self-sufficient in food, asproduction has failed to match the 3 per cent annual population growth rate.Since the 1980s, food imports have risen by roughly 10 per cent per annum,starkly underlining sub-Saharan Africa’s vulnerability and reversing earliergains in food production in the late colonial and/or early post-colonialperiods.”(3)

b. The situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

In Congo DR, the food crisis began in the early 1970s, in the wake of inde-pendence, when foreign farmers, food industrialists and foodstuffimporters had to leave the country, their businesses having been allocatedto local politicians. These measures were devastating for the country andled to a decline in agricultural production in 1971, 1973 and 1974.(4)

This crisis, combined with general mismanagement of the countryduring the Mobutu years – the misappropriation of funds allocated to theimplementation of agricultural projects, the bankruptcy of the state, theeconomic collapse with services in total chaos, coupled with civil wars –increased the levels of unemployment and the lack of secure livelihoods.Between 1977 and 1983 in Kinshasa, there was a 48 per cent reduction informal employment.(5) With the implementation of structural adjustmentmeasures in the early 1980s, the number of formal workers continued todecrease dramatically. From 429,000 civil servants (health and educationincluded) in 1980, the number decreased to 289,000 in 1985.(6) By the early1990s, nearly 70 per cent of the country’s labour force were without secureemployment and the formal sector no longer plays the key role in thecountry’s employment creation. Mobutu’s dictatorship drove Congo DRto accumulate an international debt of over US$ 14 billion while, at thesame time, his own fortune was said to be between US$ 6 billion and US$10 billion in 1997.(7) The annual growth in GNP has been negative formany years, with an average decline of 4.2 per cent a year between 1980and 1996.

The poverty in Congo DR has been exacerbated by the cutting of social

234 Environment&Urbanization Vol 13 No 2 October 2001

FEEDBACK

3. Simon, D (1995) “Debt,democracy anddevelopment: sub-SaharanAfrica in the 1990s” inDavid Simon, Wim vanSpengen, Chris Dixon andAnders Narman (editors),Structurally Adjusted Africa;Poverty, Debt and BasicNeeds, Pluto Press, London.

4. Mulumba, Lukoji (1977)“Le programme deredressement de l'économiezaïroise”, Zaire Afrique No14, Kinshasa, April, page 210.

5. INS (1984), InstitutNational de la Statistique,République du Zaïre.

6. Marysse, Stefaan et al.(1996) Globalisation andExclusion: The Mismatch ofTradition and Modernity inKinshasa (Zaire), UFSIA,Antwerp.

7. Bayart, J-F et al. (1997), La criminalisation de l’Etat enAfrique, Editions Complex,Brussels.

1980-1996 1995 1970 1996 1970 1996 1993M F M F M F

DRC (Ex. Zaïre) -4.2 71 50 131 90 245 144 59

Low-income countries 3.6 - - 113 68 -e -94

Sub-Saharan Africa -1.8 - - 137 91 - -147

High-income countries 2.4 98 98 22 6 -7 -

Table 1: Some development indicators in the DRC

Annualaverage

growth (%)

Net primaryenrolment

Infant mortalityrate per 1,000

live births

Under-fivemortality rate

% ofpopulation with

access tohealth care

SOURCE: World Bank, World Development Indicators, 1998.

expenditures by the Congolese government in 1982 due to the implemen-tation of the structural adjustment policies. This increased the general levelof suffering and has been particularly devastating for poor people. Nowa-days, many Congolese people hate the words “state” and “development”.For them, “development” has become a new weapon of western imperial-ism against Africa and a major cause of suffering for poor people. In thename of development, they say, people have lost their jobs; hospitals,schools and universities have been closed and the poor have become poorer.

The persistence of inequality, poverty and unemployment in CongoDR in general and in Kinshasa in particular has convinced poor andunemployed people to seek alternative solutions to their day-to-day prob-lems. While rich people continue to amass huge fortunes, poor peoplehave become involved in many different survival activities to generateincomes that allow them to survive.

c. Food consumption patterns in Kinshasa

One of the striking characteristics of poor households in Kinshasa is thevery high level of under-nutrition or malnutrition. As Amartya Sen andJean Dreze noted, hunger is intolerable in the modern world in a way itcould not have been in the past. This is not so much because it is moreintense, but because widespread hunger is so unnecessary and unwar-ranted in the modern world.(8)

With very limited financial means, people in Kinshasa are struggling tobuy food. Over recent years, a number of surveys have been conducted onurban dwellers’ purchasing patterns in Kinshasa.(9) With slight variationsfrom year to year or from district to district, over 50 per cent of thesurveyed households’ expenditures have been on food.

Although it is difficult to provide a comprehensive analysis of urbandiets in Kinshasa, cassava, cassava root, cereals, bread and vegetableshave an important place in daily consumption. Many ethnic groups whotraditionally were consumers of cassava root only started, some years ago,to mix the cassava root flour with corn flour as a staple in their diet. Theconsumption of rice has also increased sharply among people, whateverpart of the country they came from. Overall patterns of food consump-tion have changed, and cereals and bread have become the mostcommonly consumed food items. The components of an average meal arevaried, however, and, because of the investment necessary to stock theseingredients, street food has increasingly become a more reasonably pricedalternative for many poor Kinshasa households. A survey indicated that,while 78 per cent of respondents in one neighbourhood eat fried fish(locally called “Thomson”), only 4 per cent cook it themselves at home.People buy street foods not only because of the high cost of cooking athome but also because of a lack of time. Studies in other countries confirmthis trend. A publication by the International Food Policy Research Insti-tute asserted that in many cases, street foods are cheaper than home-prepared meals, especially when time spent shopping and cooking, andthe cost of transport and fuel are factored in.(10)

III. THE RESEARCH

THIS PAPER DRAWS on field research on “informal sector” activities inwhich the author has been involved since January 1992. The range of


STREET FOOD

8. Dreze, Jean and AmartyaSen (1989), Hunger andPublic Action, ClarendonPress, Oxford.

9. Hoyoux, Joseph et al.(1986), Budgets des ménages,Kinshasa 1986,BEAU/ICHEC, Kinshasaand Brussels; D’Souza S etal. (1995), “Evaluation duniveau de pauvreté aKinshasa; le cas de la Zonede Matete”, Zaire-AfriqueNo 294, pages 219-136; deSaint Moulin, Léon (1996),“Les problèmes sociaux àKindele (Kinshasa)”, Zaïre-Afrique No 309, pages 489-508; Marysse, Stefaan et al.(1997), La pauvreté urbaine enAfrique subsaharienne. Le casde Kinshasa, UFSIA,Antwerp; and Iyenda, M G(2001) “Secteur informel,survie des ménages et luttecontre la pauvreté aKinshasa”, Africaine No 16(in press).

10. Haddad, Lawrence,Marie T Ruel and James LGarrett (1998), GrowingUrban Poverty and Under-nutrition and SomeUrban Facts of Life:Implications for Research andPolicy, International FoodResearch Institute,Washington, unpublished.

informal activities is extremely diverse, including benign production,distribution and service enterprises together with some illegitimate orillegal operations. The growth potential and openness to formalization ofany particular enterprise depends on many factors, not least whether it issubsistence oriented, a supplement to household wage income or is busi-ness-oriented.(11)

a. Methodology and respondents

The research was carried out in December 1996 and January 1997 amongststreet food sellers in three different districts of Kinshasa namely, Kalamu,Kasa-vubu and Ngaba. The survey covered 256 respondents working infour different streets in each of the chosen districts. In the district ofKalamu, interviews were conducted amongst 85 respondents on fourstreets: Ezo, Kapela, Kimwenza and Victoire. In Kasa-Vubu, 80 respon-dents were selected on Assossa, Force Publique, Saio and Victoireavenues. Finally, the 91 interviews in Ngaba were conducted on Kianza,Kikwit, Rond Point Ngaba and Université avenues.

The study made use of qualitative methods; primarily a structuredinterview with open-ended questions. These questions focused on thetype and quality of foods, hygiene, the status of sellers, the nature ofcustomers, daily incomes and profit margins, and the role of the job inpeople’s lives as a source of income.

Respondents were over 18 years old, were residents of the district andhad been working on the same plot for at least two years. They were iden-tified and selected at random along the whole length and on both sides ofthe streets. Age was the only restrictive criterion, as other criteria, such aslevel of education or ethnic origin, might make it difficult to obtain arounded view of the activity. At the end of the survey, all respondentswere classified in terms of their gender and relationship to the head ofhousehold (HHH).

Of the 256 respondents who were interviewed, the majority werewomen (55.1 per cent against 44.9 per cent men – see Table 2). This was thecase in all three surveyed districts. Over a quarter of the women werehousehold heads. In Congo DR, the number of female household headshas increased dramatically in spite of the fact that marriage and men’srole as head of the household are still very important in this society.


11. Simon, D and S Birch(1992), “Formalising theinformal sector in achanging South Africa:small-scale manufacturingon the Witwatersrand”,World Development Vol 20,No 7, page 1032.

Gender Total %

Status Male Female

Total % total %

Household head 102 73.9 36 26.1 138 54.0

Spouse of household head - - 79 100.0 79 30.9

Son/daughter of household head 7 33.4 14 66.6 21 8.2

Brother/sister of household head 4 40.0 6 60.0 10 3.9

Other relative 2 25.0 6 75.0 8 3.1

Total 115 44.9 141 55.1 256 100.0

Table 2: Sellers’ gender and status in the households

SOURCE: Field survey, Kinshasa December 1996-January 1997.


FEEDBACK


STREET FOOD

Women said they worked as street food sellers because cooking is mainlya woman’s work in many sub-Saharan African countries and because theycan sell their goods and look after children at the same time. In manycases, their husbands’ unemployment had forced them to be more activein providing income for the households, a situation which has increasedwomen’s autonomy within the household.(12) They generally sought proj-ects that were considered to be within the sphere of female work, such asmaking and selling pastries, and frying and selling fish.

b. Regulation

The regulatory situation in Congo DR is currently very confused. Thegovernment tolerates the sale of street foods and apparently there is nospecific regulation in that area, although there is regulation that applies toformal restaurants.(13) Sixteen per cent of the sellers, however (primarilymen), claimed that food vendors were required to hold two documentsnamely, a licence (patente) and a hygiene book before starting the activity.Only three per cent of those interviewed actually had licences or legaldocuments to operate as food sellers. However, all sellers in all three areaswere subjected to harassment and had to pay bribes to gendarmes (police)and civil servants to allow them to continue their businesses.

c. Location

Many sellers operate on main streets, contributing to the congestion thatis typical of Kinshasa but offering flexibility for both sellers andcustomers. Sellers gave different reasons for choosing to locate their stallsat particular sites on the street. A significant number mentioned theimportance of easy access to the area, the provision of services, the relia-bility and the number of customers and the capacity to reach a variety ofcustomers, both poor and rich, walking on the street or passing by in cars.Most of the sellers chose to locate their stalls at the intersection of majorroads to gain access to the mix of commercial, residential and businessproperties and to the high volumes of both pedestrians and vehiculartraffic at all hours. Stalls are mainly made of wood and are erected dailyby their owners; meat, fish, chicken and other foods are cooked on thespot.

d. Investment and competition

Eighty-six per cent of the sellers interviewed, including the three per centwho recognized the need to possess licences and other legal documents,had begun their commercial activities with initial capital of about US$ 60(the equivalent of two 15-kilogramme boxes of chicken, two 30-kilo-gramme boxes of fish or one 35-kilogramme box of meat.) The majority(83 per cent) had received this initial capital from relatives, while theremaining 17 per cent had obtained loans from friends. As would beexpected, in view of the extent of activities, this level of investment wastoo low either to allow owners any rapid capital growth or to allow themto extend their businesses.

Fourteen per cent of the sellers, mainly men (94 per cent), had startedwith an investment of at least US$150 and their businesses had growneasily. They were better established and more organized and, at the timeof the interview, had more than one stall run by family members in their

12. Tripp, Aili Mari (1997),Changing the Rules. ThePolitics of Liberalisation andthe Urban Informal Economyin Tanzania, University ofCalifornia Press, page 107.

13. CEPLANUT (1995),Résultats préliminaires del’enquête sur le secteurinformel de l’alimentation àKinshasa, Ministère de lasanté publique/FAO,Kinshasa, unpublished.

districts. The men, because of their more frequent status as householdheads, found it easier to get loans and financial assistance to start a business.

Almost all respondents in the three districts recognized that the highlevel of competition in their businesses was beneficial for them and theircustomers, forcing them to make and sell good and high quality foodsand increase their efficiency and credibility vis-à-vis their customers.

e. Street foods and employment

Over 93 per cent of those interviewed depended on the sale of street foodsas their primary livelihood. Of 141 women, 138 stated that these activitieswere the sole source of livelihood for their households. Their husbandswere unemployed, sick, disabled or dead and their families relied entirelyon income from street food activities. Of the 115 men interviewed, 101 hadeither lost their jobs in the formal sector of the economy or had never beenemployed. These figures, in the context of the current high unemploy-ment levels in Congo DR, suggest that street food activities could be asignificant factor in the process of employment creation in Congo DR

When the stalls were managed by other categories of interviewees(sons or daughters of heads of households, brothers or sisters, or otherrelatives), they acknowledged that the businesses belonged to the familyand, in most cases, that they were the sole livelihood for the entire house-hold. Only seven per cent of interviewees admitted to having a second ora third source of livelihood. Most of these were civil servants and peopleinvolved in other kinds of businesses, who sell street foods only late inthe evenings after finishing their main job.

f. Daily income

Gathering information on finances was difficult initially for two reasons.First, in a country where security services harass people all the time,sellers did not have enough trust in someone asking such questions.Second, most of the sellers, especially the women, keep no written recordsor accounts of their businesses; all data are memorized and often unreli-able.(14) Frequent visits, however, resulted in greater familiarity and open-ness. Over time, the information from sellers became more readilyavailable, more consistent and, presumably, more reliable.

Twenty-one respondents (8.2 per cent) claimed a daily income of lessthan US$ 20. These were mostly young people (sons or daughters of headsof households) and most of them acknowledged that street food activities


FEEDBACK

14. Iyenda, M G (2001)“Secteur informel, surviedes ménages et lutte contrela pauvreté a Kinshasa”,Africaine No 16 (in press).

Number of livelihoods per seller Categories of sellers Total %

Men Women

Only one livelihood 101 138 239 93.4

Have a main or a secondary livelihood 14 3 17 6.7

Total 115 141 256 100

Table 3: Sellers in relation to their livelihoods

SOURCE: Field survey, Kinshasa, December 1996-January 1997.

were a secondary or a tertiary source of livelihood for their family. Thelargest number of respondents, 59.8 per cent, had a daily income of US$21-30; 28.5 per cent a daily income of US$ 31-50; and only 3.5 per centearned more than US$ 80 a day (see Figure 1).

Most of the sellers earning over US$ 20 a day were found along AvenueVictoire in the districts of Kalamu and Kasa-Vubu. These areas are in themiddle of the city and are alive at all hours; some stalls operate 24 hoursa day. Customers in this particular part of the city come from variousdistricts; Victoire is also inhabited by a large number of street children andhomeless people who, in most cases, rely solely on street foods.


STREET FOOD

Figure 1: Daily income of street food vendors

Figure 2: Weekly profit margin of street food vendors

g. Weekly profit margins

Figure 2 shows that 48.1 per cent (123 respondents) reported a weeklyprofit of US$ 51-80; 26.5 per cent (68 respondents) a weekly profit of US$31-50; 17.9 per cent (46 respondents) a weekly profit of US$ 20-30; only4.4 per cent (11 respondents) a weekly profit of less than US$ 20; and only3.1 per cent (8 respondents) reported a weekly profit of more than US$ 80.

Sellers who made less than US$ 30 weekly profit had another job anddid not rely on street foods as the main livelihood for their households.Sellers who made a weekly profit of US$ 30-40 were mainly single peoplewithout children or any particular household responsibility and wereliving with their parents. Those making the greatest profits were thesellers operating along Avenue Victoire in Kalamu and Kasa-Vubu.

IV. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

THE COLLAPSE OF the formal economy in Congo DR has made life diffi-cult for poor people in urban areas, especially in Kinshasa. The objectiveof this paper was to highlight the unemployment situation in Kinshasaand the current place of self-help strategies among poor people. In partic-ular, the paper focused on the role of street foods, not only as an impor-tant source of food consumption in Kinshasa but also as a source ofincome for poor households. The problem of street foods was addressedbecause, while at present the country is primarily concerned with thequestion of civil wars and political instability, there is a growing concernabout the sustainability of livelihoods in many households.

The economic and social importance of “informal sector” food supplyis generally underestimated or neglected in Congo DR. Nevertheless, itconstitutes for many households the main, and often the only, source ofincome. It currently employs a significant number of urban dwellers inKinshasa and provides them with the financial means to cope with theday-to-day problems of urban life. Indeed, most of those interviewed inthis study (93.35 per cent) rely solely on these activities for livelihoods fortheir households. Although the weekly profit margin varies, the amountsearned have allowed vendors to solve their daily problems regardinghousing, education, health, transport, food etc. Although most of thesevendors would still be classified as poor (according to the World Bankcriterion of US$ 1 per person per day), they recognize that their lives arebetter than those of the unemployed, or civil servants who are unpaid formany months.

Ismael Len has suggested that the development of small-scale, lowcapital-to-labour micro-enterprises of all types results in the productionand circulation of goods and services within the informal sector, allow-ing the expansion of job opportunities in the absence of formal sectoravailability.(15) Dewar and Watson have also pointed out that in manycountries, considerable rhetorical emphasis is being placed on the poten-tial role of the informal sector in alleviating poverty and employment, andthere is a call for the “stimulation” of this kind of activity.(16) Furthermore,according to Simon, nowadays, “...no account of the urban economy wouldbe complete without consideration of people and activities excluded from theformal sector.”(17) These informal activities are an important component ofhuman development as defined by Simon: “...the process of enhancingindividual and collective quality of life in a manner that satisfies basic


FEEDBACK

15. Len, Ismael (1991),Informal Sector Mobilisation:The Process by Which PoorPeople Shelter Themselves andImplication for Policy Focuson the Caribbean, Universityof Pennsylvania.

16. Dewar, David andVanessa Watson (1990),Urban Markets. DevelopingInformal Retailing,Routledge, London, page 1.

17. Simon, David (1984),“Urban poverty, informalsector activity and inter-sectoral linkages:evidence from Windhoek”,Development and Change Vol 15, page 557.


STREET FOOD

needs (as a minimum), is environmentally, socially and economicallysustainable, and is empowering in the sense that people concerned havea substantial degree of control over the process through access to themeans of accumulating social power.”(18)

Although it is too early to recommend the full support by governmentof the informal sector of food production and sales, these activities’ rolein the process of income generation and employment creation is appar-ent. They have become an ideal form of social organization, allowingpeople to look after themselves in a situation where the state does not playits role. Their services and goods serve primarily the poorest groups andare flourishing, mainly in response to the needs of poor people. The causesof poverty in Congo DR are complex. Its eradication requires significantrethinking of social policies and of the linkages between economic andsocial policies.

18. Simon, David andAnders Närman (editors)(1999), Development asTheory and Practice,Longman, Harlow, AddisonWesley.

Street food and income generation for poor households in Kinshasa

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