Contribution Of The Urban Informal Sector In Household Poverty Alleviation: A Case Study Of Food Vendors In Mwanza City, Tanzania

ABSTRACT

This study assessed the contribution of food vendors in poverty alleviation at household level in Mwanza city. Three vending centers namely Pamba market, Kirumba fish market and Igoma daladala stand centre were selected as representation centers. A sample of 100 food vendors from the selected centers were involved in the study, 3 WEO‟s and City Public Health Officer, were  involved in the study. Data collection included structured interviews, Focused Group Discussion, in-depth interview and observations. Both data, primary and secondary obtained was analyzed using descriptive statistic of means, percentage and frequencies. Results indicated that food vendors are dominated by woman, who accounts about 82% of the food vending respondents (50-78%) with Primary education level. On the other hand, food vending has great contribution in the household poverty alleviation through income generation of at least 50,000 per day, 76.5% vendors in Pamba, 23.5% vendors in Kirumba and all vendors in Igoma. Major factors that affect the performance of food vending include high price fluctuation of commodities (100%) and inaccessibility of financial services (70%). It is recommended that, the Government should provide permanent business premises which are essential to the vendors and facilitate the provision of credits and soft bank loans, capacity building in terms of training on entrepreneur skills was also observed as essential to the food vendors.