Vendors Initiative for Social and Economic Transformation (VISET) recently met with officials from the Department of Employment Creation under the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare.
The delegation was led by the Deputy Director Research and Economic Affairs Mr. Sam Hobwani and Dereck Nhema an officer in the same department, whilst Samuel Wadzai led the VISET team. Mr. Hobwani said his department recently activated an exercise to gather statistics on the number of people employed in the informal economy. They want to partner with VISET, given the organisation’s vast informal economy networks and membership, to undertake a process of disaggregating players/workers in the sector by age, sex, disability, nature of business and education level. Hobwani said they had seen it fit to reach out to VISET in this exercise given the mobilization ability they had witnessed during the Formalization Strategy public hearings held countrywide last year. He further revealed that the exercise would better inform government policy interventions that are evidence-based.
Samuel Wadzai VISET Executive Director welcomed the visit by the Department and expressed appreciation for the faith shown in the organization and pledged to avail the membership records for the exercise as well as coordinating SOCHAMPs countrywide for more statistics, as well as for any other information that the department might deem necessary. Wadzai also pledged to coordinate other informal economy organizations to assist in the exercise.
In conclusion Mr. Nhema committed to holding monthly engagements together with representatives from other departments in the Ministry in order to exchange notes on developments within the informal economy ecosystem.
