ABSTRACT
In Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, almost 100,000 street food vendors are facing highly precarious working and living conditions. They are at risk of being evicted by the police, drawn into the micro-politics of extortion, and two out of three live below the poverty line. The author argues that street food vendors’ experiences of economic insecurity and exploitation are directly related to their marginalization in society and to the criminalization of informal economic practices by law. It is also recognized that the hygienic conditions of street food preparation, sale, and consumption are generally poor and that hawkers’ encroachments contribute to overcrowded streets. Together, these facts provide the impetus to change the prevailing modes of Dhaka’s “street food governance.”
With reference to India’s street vendors’ policy and to “Policy Guidelines on Healthy Street Food Vending in Bangladesh” that were proposed by the Consumers Association of Bangladesh, the author discusses ways towards fair street food governance. He discusses nine practices of fair street food governance, among them licensing systems, securing their access to public space, services for hawkers, business support, food safety training, political empowerment and practices of identification. The key, however, lies in the social recognition of this trade and the urban poor’s legitimate claims for their “rights to the city.” The proposed ideas might be of relevance for urban planning, city governance, poverty alleviation, food security programs, and development cooperation.
