FEICOM´s INFORM´ALL-CITY project to help roadside vendors foster dev’t.

With funding from international donor partners, including the European Union, the project aims at checking inordinate occupation of streets and sidewalks by street vendors; at the same time, trying to help councils increase their revenue through formal financial contributions from street vendors.

When the project was launched at the Mimboman head office of FEICOM on Tuesday, March 21, the Director General of FEICOM, Camille Philippe Akoa, said the project is another milestone in his establishment´s effort to improve the living conditions of Cameroonians living at the grassroots.

Disclosing that when the project was presented to donor partners alongside others from eight other African countries, FEICOM´s own was singled out for immediate funding.

Therefore, the sum of 101,983,335 FCFA was made available to FEICOM to implement the first phase of the project. Which is also the first designed by the Research, Development and Innovation Unit, CRDI of FEICOM.

“Indeed, it was the winner of the international call for innovative micro-projects launched in the eight countries of intervention of the Promotion of Research, Innovation, and Digital Culture in Central Africa, PRICNAC project,” Akoa further disclosed.

Stressing that the new project now launches FEICOM fully into the Research and Development, R&D ecosystem.

Specificities

Unveiling further the entire package, the Director General said INFORM´ALL-CITY project will offer street vendors a digital space for online booking and payment at the town or council hall, of money for the market space they occupy.

Street vendors will also be offered the opportunity to undertake online studies; E-Learning, through a solidarity programme for the development of their entrepreneurial skills.

For which purpose, a simplified e-learning module has been designed for street vendors, provided by JFN and the AUF network, Akoa assured.

Another benefit is that the project will strive to help street vendors augment their incomes and other resources. In which case, the project aims at increasing their access, via the platform, to partner e-commerce sites and applications.

Street vendors doing business in the Yaounde II and Douala III Councils will be the first beneficiaries, in this first phase as FEICOM makes plans to spread implementation to more councils if this first phase records commendable success, the FEICOM boss further announced.

Urban Development benefits

For Tegve, epse Bissek Murielle, Head of the Research, Development and Innovation, CRDI Unit at FEICOM, who is leading the field implementation, the project has reciprocal benefits for both the benefitting councils and street vendors.

For one, developing and implementing the platform as well as associated collaborative methodologies will support the training of not less than 300 female street vendors in the two beneficiary councils.

As it concerns tax governance, she said the project also offers a digital platform with which to manage and control the collection of taxes and rates from informal street vendors.

While as far as Urban Governance is concerned, the innovative project offers a digital platform that allows, thanks to CIS, for the control of the management, planning and occupation of space along urban streets for trade purposes.

Whereas, and as far as increasing the revenue of councils is concerned, the platform allows for the collection of additional taxes thanks to the digital collection of street occupation fees from street vendors.

The innovation also creates a tracking system for informal vendors; offers real-time visibility of the occupants of public space; allows for the understanding and planning of the occupation of public space; and offers services and amenities to street vendors.

For Bissek, the project provides an ordering platform for street vendors; creates a database for the production of useful statistics; and last but not the least, offers vendors the possibility to pay fees for occupying public space.

She concluded by unveiling shocking statistics: 90 percent of unemployed and under employed Cameroonians are street vendors; among who 55 percent are women. They contribute a meagre 29 percent to the wealth of the nation, while 76.8 percent of households in the country are run or headed by street vendors.

Helping this mass of human beings to be digital-focused, Bissek said, could make a great difference in government´s ongoing national development effort.