Abstract
This paper analyses the complexity of regulating the activities of small traders at the Grand Marché in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Markets in Africa are places where small-scale trading takes place par excellence, and the traders who work there are generally considered to be self-employed. The plurality of regulations governing commercial activity observed there seems to be particularly conducive to such an analysis. We examine these complexities within the theoretical framework of “social regulation” as well as that of “normative pluralism,” which encompasses both official and practical norms. We show that the work of traders is regulated both by norms issued by the Régie Autonome de Gestion des Équipements Marchands (Independent Management Board for Commercial Facilities) – an official structure – and by traders’ own practical norms, which have both collective and individual aspects to them. The complexities of the relationship between these official and practical norms lie in the fact that sometimes they are not always articulated and may both co-exist and contradict each other.
Introduction
This paper considers the question of how the activities of small traders in Rood Woko market, the largest market in Ouagadougou City, Burkina Faso, are regulated. The term “traders’ activity” is used here to refer to the set of practices and transactions traders engage in as part of their economic and professional functions. It encompasses work (the daily tasks that traders carry out and the efforts they make in order to organise, manage, and perform their commercial activities) and these commercial activities themselves (financial transactions, procedures to distribute goods and services, and all other interactions with the market), as well as relevant social and economic dynamics (the power relations and social interactions that influence and structure their endeavours).
According to the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) “International Standard Classification of Occupations,” small-scale trading in African markets is an integral part of the informal economy. From an administrative standpoint, it is not governed by Burkina Faso's labour laws, but this does not rule out the existence of other forms of regulation. In particular, our observations in the field revealed that traders’ activity was subject to three different types of regulation at various levels: individual self-regulation, collective regulation, and (attempts at) administrative regulation. As has been shown elsewhere, the term “regulation” must be understood in both its sociological and systemic sense, namely, as the production of rules and maintenance of an equilibrium between players with divergent interests (employers/employees, collectives/individuals) in the face of various constraints and challenges. These two meanings are closely bound together in the social management of companies (Dietrich and Pigeyre, 2011: 78).
We show that small traders organise themselves individually, and sometimes even collectively, in such a way as to cope with the particular constraints of their activity, which is independent, precarious, and often very modest in scale. They are also faced with the public regulation of their workspace, Rood Woko market. By studying how these different forms of regulation interact, we can gain a better understanding of how small trading as a means of self-employment – which according to the ILO (2018) is extremely widespread in African cities – is carried out. This approach highlights the complexities involved in the regulation of traders’ activities, as not simply limited to legal requirements but also including social, cultural, and economic aspects. It allows us to understand how different regulatory forces influence and shape the framework in which traders operate and how they can likewise negotiate or resist these dynamics.
After presenting our theoretical and methodological framework, we describe the general organisation of the work of small traders in Ouagadougou's markets. We subsequently analyse the three forms of regulation (individual, collective, and public) that govern – or attempt to govern – this activity. We conclude by showing that regulating the work of small traders at Rood Market is a complex phenomenon that brings together regulations from different places at several levels of commercial activity, since it takes place in a general context of normative pluralism seeing the blurring of boundaries between the formal and informal economies.
Theoretical and Methodological Framework
This paper is based on an ethnographic study of small-scale trade in Ouagadougou commissioned by the ILO and carried out in 2016 based on a quantitative and a qualitative survey. 1 It also makes use of an ethnographic survey carried out in Burkina Faso's capital in 2022 and 2023 as part of the “Syndicalisme au Quotidien en Afrique” research programme (2019–2023), 2 which supplemented and updated the 2016 data. The material presented here relates specifically to the part of the research devoted to the professional practices of traders vis-à-vis issues of risk and security in Rood Woko market. The survey is based on personal observations and semi-structured interviews. We first observed in situ at the market then conducted semi-structured interviews with traders at their place of work, with managers of the Régie Autonome de Gestion des Équipements Marchands (Independent Management Board for Commercial Facilities, RAGEM) in Ouagadougou, with agents of the RAGEM working at the market, and with leaders of the unions and associations representing market traders.
Our analytical framework relies on two established approaches; the notion of “social regulation” was first theorised by the sociologist of work Jean-Daniel Reynaud (1997), who developed a general notion of social regulation based on three ideas: autonomous regulation, control regulation, and joint regulation (De Terssac, 2003). These different modes of regulation, which arise from actors having conflicting interests during their interactions, are deployed throughout this article in the more general context of “normative pluralism” (Bernheim, 2011; Chauveau et al., 2001). As we will see, the activity of small traders is regulated both by the norms issued by RAGEM – an official structure – and by traders’ own practical norms, which have both collective and individual aspects to them. The complexity of the relationship between these official and practical norms lies in the fact that sometimes they are not always articulated and may both co-exist and contradict each other. This results in forms of joint regulation. So much so, in fact, that small traders’ self-regulation is only “semi-autonomous” (Falk Moore, 2000). Social regulation and normative pluralism seem to us, accordingly, to be particularly appropriate models for analysing the complex regulation that governs the activity of small traders in our chosen setting. 3
Organising and Regulating Small-Scale, Informal Trade in Ouagadougou
Small-Scale Trade Straddling the Formal and Informal Economies
The activities carried out by traders at Rood Woko market are generally small scale in nature and involve few resources. In Burkina Faso, market traders are considered to be part of both the micro-enterprise or small-business sector and of the informal economy. Criteria for distinguishing what constitutes “formal” and “informal” economy activity in Burkina Faso vary greatly, meaning a clear dividing line cannot be drawn between the two categories. Parameters shift from one institution to another, ranging from being registered with the Registre de Commerce et de Crédit Mobilier (Trade and Personal Property Credit Register, RCCM) to affiliation with the Caisse Nationale de la Sécurité Sociale (National Social Security Fund). For example, the Maison de l’Entreprise (Business Centre) classifies any business that opts for the Régime Simplifié d’Imposition (Simplified Tax Regime, RSI) as a “formal” one, while the Contribution du Secteur Informel (Informal Sector Contribution, CSI) is paid by “informal” ones. This distinction is connected to reporting and book-keeping obligations, which are themselves based on turnover and business volume. As Simon Barussaud (2014: 230–231) has clearly shown, Burkina Faso's regimes for micro- and small enterprises (Micro et Petits Entreprises, MPEs) divide taxpayers into one of two categories, as depending on their turnover, the nature of their activity, and their legal form (formal or informal).
The first of these is the CSI. Physical persons with a turnover of less than XOF 15 million (USD 30,000) are subject to the CSI, regardless of whether they are registered with the RCCM or not. Individuals whose activities fall within the CSI are not required to keep accounts for tax purposes. It should also be noted that informal sector contributions are paid on a flat-rate basis at the end of each calendar year. This lump sum varies between XOF 50,000 and 100,000 (approximately USD 100–200) depending on the location and nature of the business in question. However, those concerned also have the option of choosing a higher tax regime.
The second of these is the RSI. Physical persons with a turnover in excess of XOF 15 million as well as legal entities – regardless of their volume of business – are subject to the latter. All those falling under this scheme are required to keep accounts for tax purposes. They have quarterly reporting obligations, including regarding the payment of the VAT they have deducted and the flat-rate minimum tax. This amounts to a minimum of XOF 300,000 (USD 600) a year (or XOF 75,000 per quarter) regardless of turnover. In addition, companies covered by the RSI must pay their business licence fee, their employees’ taxes, and their profit-related taxes.
Semi-Autonomous Regulation of Small Traders’ Activities
As in other African cities, small-scale trade in Ouagadougou's Rood Woko market is generally carried out by non-wage-earning, self-employed workers and developed by unemployed city-dwellers using the resources at their disposal. It is a kind of self-employment that takes the form of wholesale, semi-wholesale, retail, and micro-retail trade. When we were identifying the key actors during our 2016 survey, we chose to differentiate between these various categories of trader on the basis of their specific position as wholesalers, semi-wholesalers, or retailers in the product-marketing chain. We noted that there were fewer wholesalers and semi-wholesalers than retailers and micro-retailers. The average breakdown in the groups of traders we surveyed was approximately 70 per cent retailers and 30 per cent wholesalers and semi-wholesalers. The majority of the traders who work at the market operate on a very small-scale and precarious basis, using few resources. It is a form of unsalaried self-employment.
Being self-employed, the market traders regulate most aspects of their work autonomously. They set the standards that define the work to be done and the rules for performing the various tasks for themselves – “the skills for carrying it out, the means and methods to be used” (Leplat, 2006). Similarly, they set the actual rules for carrying out their work, such as the length of the working day and the compensation they pay their sales assistants and errand boys.
Certain retailers who have more resources (wholesalers and semi-wholesalers) sometimes use family or non-family labour (as salespeople or sales assistants, errand boys or girls, packers and unpackers, and the like) to help them with their work. 4 As a general rule, labour agreements are oral and fall outside the scope of the “Labour Code.” 5 However, employers may be required to keep accounts above a certain income threshold (depending on their tax regime), and as MPEs they are expected to comply with the rules and regulations governing commercial activity 6 as well as with labour law (if they have employees).
As we will see, their autonomy is partially limited control. Although they are self-employed, they have collective obligations. In particular, they are expected to comply with the rules laid down by the associations or unions responsible for defining the collective standards that govern the various aspects of their members’ work.
The Collective Regulation of Commercial Activity: Traders’ Associations
Retail Groups, Associations, and Trade Unions
The Rood Woko market is home to a group of associations, unions, cooperatives, and organisations, some of which are officially recognised and some which are not but which together represent traders’ interests before the public authorities. 7 In principle, the associations and cooperatives are responsible for organising practical measures of support for traders (such as obtaining microcredits), while the unions and organisations are responsible for advocating for and defending the interests of the various trade sectors (Hendriks, 2017). The traders’ groups were involved in the civil society protests between 2011 and 2014 that ultimately marked the end of the Blaise Compaoré regime and have sought to reorganise product-marketing channels and provide certain services to their members.
At the most basic level, traders’ groups bring together local associations of traders in the same sector. For example, the Coordination des Syndicats et Associations de Commerçants groups together in total around 100 associations and sections of the main trade unions present in Rood Woko market. At a higher level, cross-sector organisations combine various larger branches of activity from across the country. At present, all these unions and associations come under the umbrella of the Conseil National de l’Économie Informelle (National Council for the Informal Economy [NCIE]); however, boundaries regarding areas of involvement and the division of roles between each type of group are not always clear. In addition, the groups are not all well-coordinated or well-structured, which has led to weaknesses in the overall representation of the commercial sector that have been at the root of its recent “politicisation.” In 2019, the election of members and officers of the NCIE was the scene of a fierce struggle and high political stakes. The main leaders of the business community, who belonged to different parties, clashed, sparking major dissent on the part of several of the associations. The traders’ associations emerged from these clashes significantly weakened in their subsequent dealings with both representatives of the public authorities and members of their own associations and trade unions.
Making Up for the Shortcomings in the Public Administration: Regulating Commercial Channels
The main reason why market traders have joined the various groups in their sector is that they need an organisation that can defend their interests vis-à-vis the public authorities on the one hand and protect them from the fluctuating balance of power in the various trade sectors on the other, in particular from the dominant market position of the wholesalers and above all of foreign importers. They expect the groups to ensure that the status and position of each category of traders in the various product-marketing channels is respected. Other important reasons traders gave for joining these groups included the establishment of mutual aid and support networks to deal with financial problems (access to capital) and commercial matters (stock management, product sales, finding outlets for goods), as well as social issues (such as healthcare, education costs, and family-related expenses). 8 Traders see membership of such groups as a way of accessing these different types of services, which they cannot obtain from the public authorities.
Since the first decade of the new millennium and the opening up to international competition, the gradual withdrawal of the state, and the diminishing organisation of product chains, regulating product-marketing chains has become one of the main activities of the traders’ associations, which have been called upon to settle disputes between traders. This takes two forms. First, the various trade sectors are (re-)organised by bringing together the respective actors working within a given sector; second, the public authorities are lobbied to improve the national regulatory framework so that it responds more effectively to the problems encountered by traders in the course of their business.
With regard to reorganising commercial channels, for the retailers this involves defining the role of each category of trader (wholesalers, semi-wholesalers, and retailers), improving the way goods are supplied and sold, organising financing within the sector, and adopting a standardised pricing policy, among other objectives. This method of regulating activity within particular channels is simplified by grouping actors geographically and by social proximity, but it also needs the groups to take account of the diversity of the actors, each of which have their own specific situations and concerns. The wholesalers’ priorities are not necessarily the same as those of the retailers. The groups we encountered have almost identical structures, which enable those in charge to intervene at all levels of the value chain. For example, one finds solidarity and collaboration in the shea sector, which includes the people who plant it, those who produce shea butter, and those involved in its retail. Manufacturers generally obtain the commodity on credit from the seller, which enables them to continue producing shea butter even when they have no money to buy the raw material. This spirit of mutual aid and solidarity among the various actors involved helps the industry to function despite the many difficulties, and it is an asset that attracts new members. As far as improving the regulatory framework for trade through awareness raising and advocacy is concerned, the starting point is the recurring episodes of unfair competition observed in the field since the 2010s, particularly to the detriment of semi-wholesalers and retailers. The aim of the group leaders is also to achieve a good balance between each category of actor in the sector by further regulating the trading profession, and so they have introduced provisions that define the roles of wholesalers, semi-wholesalers, and retailers based on the day-to-day practices that already structure the various channels along these lines. In 2013, lobbying of the public authorities resulted in a decree regulating the profession of “trader” (Article 10 of Law 13-2013), which aims to issue a specific card for each category thereof. Even though implementation has been modest to date despite the numerous related interministerial meetings organised, it can still be said that, by obtaining official recognition for informal organisations of professionals from the various channels, the traders’ groups have given themselves the means to control and denounce cases of unfair competition by national wholesalers or foreign importers/wholesalers more efficiently. To this end, the traders’ associations have run a number of awareness-raising campaigns for their members, in the company of officials from the Ministry of Trade, to support implementation of this regulatory provision and the issuing of new trader ID cards.
Making Up for the Shortcomings of the Public Administration: Alternative Financing Solutions
One important issue that was repeatedly raised by small traders during our survey in the field was the difficulty with accessing financing. Faced with the absence of a public policy to help them source credit, traders have developed alternative solutions. Because they lack the financial or property guarantees needed to apply for bank loans, they have set up other ways of securing the necessary funding based on social capital and reputation. The trade groups have established three main alternative financing initiatives, including the creation of a mutual fund that operates on much the same principles as a tontine. Through this fund, they have obtained lines of credit from private and public institutions by way of joint and multiple guarantees being provided by members. They also created their own guarantee fund based on savings, which was proposed by the National Union of Burkinabe Traders (SYNATCOMB) and achieved through the establishment of a Commercial Solidarity Cooperative (SOCSOCOM) based on the national network of the traders who belong to this union. The objective behind the cooperative's founding was to raise a fund of around XOF 100 billion from subscribers, which would be used to finance and develop the commercial activities of its members. The initiative was a failure, however, and the traders were never able to obtain credit or recover their subscriptions paid to it. 9
Through these various alternative financing initiatives, retailers’ associations have demonstrated their awareness of the need to organise themselves as effectively as possible so as to be able to pool resources, defend their interests, and find solutions to problems left unaddressed by the public authorities. As we can see, the dynamism of the traders’ groups and their ability to challenge the authorities mean that they play a fundamental role in the collective regulation of essential aspects of a trader's work. The collective professional and practical standards that regulate the informal work of traders co-exist as the various forms of regulation examined here and seem to be organised around a kind of joint regulation.
Associations and unions of small traders have proliferated in recent years, having particularly numerous during Burkina Faso's large-scale protest movements. They were powerful corporatist groups for many years, especially between 2011 and 2014, when protests saw increased demands on government and the demise of Compaoré's regime, with members showing an exceptional ability to mobilise. However, they have since been gradually weakened by constant political exploitation and the leadership struggles between unions and associations, as well as by enduring rivalries among the main leaders.
Attempts by the Public Authorities to Regulate Informal Trade Administratively
During the first decade of the new century, Burkina Faso's public authorities made a real effort to engage in dialogue with those working in the informal sector. Several platforms for exchange and consultation were organised, including the Rencontres Gouvernement Secteur Privé (RGSP) and the Forum National du Secteur Informel (National Forum of the Informal Economy [FNSI]) (Barussaud, 2019: 131–132).
The Burkinabe government initiated the annual government–private sector meetings (RGSP) in 2001. In principle they were to be held annually, bringing all ministerial departments and organisations representing the private sector together for two days to discuss their main cross-cutting concerns. They were usually preceded by 11 sectoral meetings to identify more specific issues. The meetings generated a positive dynamic from the outset, which led to the introduction of a series of reforms of great interest to the business community. It was during this period that the government created the Maison de l’Entreprise, the Centre de Formalité des Entreprises, and a series of other one-stop shops (such as CEFAC and GUF) with the aim of making knowledge of and compliance with the rules governing commercial activity a simpler matter.
In addition, the FNSI provided an alternative platform for discussion between the state and the private sector that was specifically reserved for actors in the informal economy. The first two rounds were organised in 2008 and 2010, after which no more were held for another nine years despite the positive results that had been enjoyed by the earlier meetings (such as taking the specific constraints of the informal sector into account and popularising public policies). According to some traders, the two initial rounds of the FNSI provided them with a much-appreciated space for dialogue with all government departments around the difficulties they were encountering on the ground.
Unfortunately, at the same time the FNSI meetings stopped, the RGSP meetings gradually became politicised from 2011 onwards, which led traders to question their legitimacy and effectiveness. During the final years of Compaoré's rule, the choice of organisations representing the private sector that took part in these meetings was arbitrary. Delegates from the business community were selected on the basis of their political affinity with the government and not their degree of representativeness, whether in terms of their ability to mobilise their support base or to convey their main concerns or demands (Hendriks, 2017). Any traders’ organisations that wanted to raise the difficulties they were facing were excluded from the meetings, which led to disaffiliation on the part of their members.
The public authorities’ attempts to regulate small-scale, informal trade came to an end during the final years of the Compaoré regime. After the end of the transition period in 2015, the ILO played an important role in reinvigorating dialogue between the public authorities and informal traders after its earlier collapse. Nonetheless, during dialogues organised in 2015 and 2016, it was clear that an attitude of mistrust and scepticism prevailed among traders towards public authorities despite the change of government in 2014. Compaoré's recent fall from power.
Following the change in government, the authorities created a National Directorate for the Informal Economy (NDIE) by ministerial decree in September 2016. 10 It was one of the three technical directorates that made up the Direction Générale de l’Insertion Professionnelle et de l’Emploi (Directorate-General for Professional Integration and Employment) in the Ministry of Youth, Training, and Professional Integration – the Directorate for Employment and Professional Integration and the Directorate for Monitoring Professional Integration and Employment Actions being the other two. During the 2017 RGSP meetings, however, the representatives from the informal economy organisations asked for the FNSI to be reinstated given the earlier positive results.
The ILO played a crucial role in the establishment of the various components making up this consultation framework, particularly in the organisation of the third meeting of the FNSI in 2019 on the topic: “What are the strategies for greater formalisation and facilitation of the activities of informal agricultural and non-agricultural economic units?” It brought together around 1000 participants, including representatives of umbrella organisations and associations from the informal economy; officials from public bodies in the field of employment, labour, and vocational training; specialists in the informal economy, planning, and financing issues; and leaders of professional associations active in the formal economy. The aim of this third meeting was to choose future priorities in a “National Action Plan for Transition to a Formal Economy.” One of the outcomes of this event was the establishment of the NCIE of Burkina Faso (CNEI-BF).
The CNEI-BF was conceived as an umbrella organisation for the informal economy that brought together more than 1000 related organisations, and it has become their main intermediary with the government and other partners since its formation in 2019. The Council reflected the wishes expressed by informal economy actors during the first two meetings of the FNSI in 2008 and 2010, but it was not until the end of the third forum in 2019 that representatives from the government and informal economy organisations resolved to create the Council. In December 2019, elections were held to appoint the delegates from the respective associations and trade unions who would sit on the council. In addition, the CNEI-BF, which had 41 members at the national level, also had regional and provincial councils. 11 Its main point of contact with the public authorities was the NDIE. However, despite the establishment of these bodies, the prospect of a transition to decent work and social protection as defined by the ILO is still not clearly on the horizon.
Despite these collaborative efforts between the administration and traders, the individual and semi-autonomous regulation of traders’ activities and the collective regulation of their associations can still conflict with the administrative regulation of their workplace, as the next section demonstrates.
Joint Regulation at Rood Woko Market
RAGEM's Regulation and Management of Market Infrastructures
In addition to being small trader's primary workplace, Rood Woko market is a major site belonging to the Municipality of Ouagadougou and managed by its RAGEM. 12 RAGEM is headed by a management team and a management committee. The committee acts like a board of directors and has eleven members, including six councillors representing the mayor of the municipality and the city's five districts, four representatives of the beneficiaries (one for markets, one for the street shops, one for the station, and one for the car park), and a technician. It meets ordinarily on a quarterly basis and can also hold a maximum of two extraordinary sessions a year. The day-to-day operations of the association are carried out by a director, three departments (Administration and Finance, Maintenance and Upkeep, Debt Collection and Litigation), and a detachment of the municipal police with about sixty officers. Each of the markets it administers has an administrative office staffed by between two and five agents who oversee daily tasks, supported by five to eight police officers.
Before we proceed any further, we should note that Ouagadougou has more than 120 markets that have not been formally developed. As in so many other African cities, Burkina Faso's capital suffers from a lack of market infrastructure, as well as poor management of that which does exist. For this reason, the traders’ organisations set up the Fédération des Commerçants des Marchés et des Yaar de la Région du Centre (FCMYRC) to manage the city's undeveloped markets. Its aim is to compensate for the limitations of RAGEM, which is responsible solely for developed markets with at least 14,000 sales spaces. The FCMYRC's management of small markets includes allocating sales places, supervising the activities carried out there, maintaining them, and keeping them secure (Barussaud, 2019: 144).
RAGEM oversees, accordingly, the management and security of Rood Woko market, as well as the leasing of sales areas, maintaining the buildings during the rainy season, cleaning, and security. As a result, it exercises regulatory control over the working conditions of small traders active on-site. It should be noted here that RAGEM does not regulate their activities per se (selling and buying), rather their workplace and the conditions under which they work: it regulates each trader's workspace in relation to other traders and the spaces shared by everyone who uses the market.
Workplace Safety Standards and Exposure to the Risk of Fire
The particular areas we will examine now are safety at work and the regulation of access to the workplace, where sales are made. At Rood Woko market, safety regulations are very strict. They were introduced in 2009 to prevent another catastrophe like the fire that completely destroyed the market on 27 May 2003. Before that disaster, the market, which occupies a four-hectare plot in sector 1 of the city centre, had 2666 sales spaces (officially allocated shops and stalls) plus around 2600 more that were occupied informally – and illegally. Traders (whom the authorities described as “anarchic”) had set up in common areas and aisles, which were off-limits for sales, and appropriated them for themselves. About 10,000 people were living and working there at the time. 13 The market's staircases, aisles, and access streets were, as such, all occupied by merchants and goods (Dupuis et al., 2010: 227). It was later established that the fire broke out because of this overcrowding and the precarious state of the electrical facilities the traders had installed.
This situation is far from unique to Ouagadougou. The many fires that have ravaged major markets in Africa's cities 14 to date have led to thousands of traders being ruined and to financial losses running into billions of XOF. The causes are almost always the same. They start with a spark from a short-circuit caused by a “wild” electrical connection or poorly extinguished embers from a charcoal stove. The fire then spreads rapidly from shop to shop, fuelled by wood from illegal stalls, plastic, and cardboard from the packaging piled on the roofs of stalls and by the goods themselves. In each case, it was discovered that the market had been housing two or three times the number of traders the legally allocated spaces allowed on a daily basis. As a result, access aisles clogged with informal stands and stalls prevented the fire brigade from gaining rapid access to hydrants, which were buried under the sprawling stalls and mounds of goods. 15 This repeated exposure to the risk of fire in Africa's largest urban markets is an issue the researcher must take very seriously. It is clear that such fires are a direct consequence of the professional practices of traders, who violate safety rules at the risk of losing their property and indeed lives.
The Introduction of Official Safety Standards
Rood Woko market was gradually rebuilt after the fire, reopening in 2009. 16 Before embarking on the renovation work, the lender, the AFD, implemented a proactive participatory approach that involved vendors’ and traders’ representatives in designing the reconstruction project. This participatory process saw a confrontation between the “formal” logic of the AFD, which sought to impose international safety standards on the workspace (control regulation), and the “informal” logic of the shopkeepers, who wanted to reproduce the practical standards of their activity (autonomous regulation). The AFD had initially envisaged having large shops with wide-access roads to allow for the free movement of emergency vehicles, a design that could help protect the market and guarantee the safety of the traders working there in the event of a disaster. During the participatory process, though, the traders’ representatives asked for exactly the opposite layout. They demanded that more and smaller shops be built so that they could all be “rehoused” in the new market. They ultimately won their case on the express condition that they agreed that the shops would only be sales locations and that merchandise would be stored outside the market in a facility based in the city. As a result of this joint regulation (Reynaud, 1997: 53, 55), the number of sales spaces was increased by 15 per cent (2666–3145).
Strict regulations governing the occupation of market space were put in place to avoid a repeat of the issues that had led to the 2003 fire. As with other large markets that have been refurbished in recent years, 17 these provisions prohibit the use of shops as storage places for goods and all forms of illegal transfer of shops that have not been declared to the authorities, such as subletting, selling, or buying a lease (which are known locally as “transactions”). Finally, itinerant traders are not authorised to sell within the market area, and only people who pay rent are “normally” permitted to carry out their business on-site. RAGEM, in conjunction with the traders’ groups, has drawn up a set of specifications covering the main elements of these regulations, which all traders who rent a space in the market must sign on to. The market has water points and fire hydrants in each pavilion, and wide aisles provide fire engines with access to the centre of the market. Finally, a space reserved for customer foot traffic has been set aside by a red line on the ground in front of each shop. The joint regulations reflect a desire to control occupation of the commercial workspaces in order to make them safer.
Traders’ Risky Business Practices
No sooner had the market begun operating in 2009, however, than the traders who had been legally allocated spaces gradually began to impose their own informal standards, in the management of their businesses, their practices regarding displaying goods, and their relationships with customers. In the face of the space limitations created by their initial decision to have only small shops, they began transforming their shops into storage facilities and the market aisles into places to showcase their wares. Although the market's official regulations distinguish between areas authorised for sales (shops, fixed stalls, demarcated areas on the ground) and “common areas” where any kind of commercial activity is normally prohibited, the latter are taken over on a daily basis by stalls, by unauthorised sales on the ground along the central aisles, and by itinerant salespeople. To address this competition, the legal retailers, in turn, cross the red line delimiting the perimeter of their shops, displaying their goods in the aisles reserved for customers and emergency access. They further maximise their shop's potential earnings by inviting invite family members to (illegally) occupy the market's common areas.
The taking over of common areas by vendors selling from wooden stalls and on the ground follows the same “traffic” logic observed by Jean-Pierre Jacob and Pierrick Leu (2014) at the Great Market in Ouahigouya. Vendors want to display their goods along the typical routes taken by customers who walk along the aisles to buy their supplies. Every morning, for example, the sellers of garden produce who also have a permanent stall place their produce on the ground to form a corridor along the central aisles, as close as possible to the routes customers must take.
Our interviews revealed that the informal “traffic” logic, which consists of situating as many goods as possible along the passageways taken by customers, is based on the one hand on the idea that having access to a large surface area for showcasing wares will make it possible to sell more and on the other on the belief that those arriving at the market will be drawn to a shop that stands out for the abundance and variety of goods on display for all to see. However, this logic is also explained by a “moral economy” that considers any empty space to be free and unappropriated and therefore available to anyone who wants to occupy and exploit it for themselves. To increase sales, therefore, traders call on two or three “little brothers” to whom they entrust merchandise, telling them to set up shop with a small outlet in the free spaces to be found in the common areas. It's hard to fight these informal traders because they’re protected by the traders who sell inside the market. If they didn't have an agreement with these guys, the informal markets that are proliferating outside wouldn't exist. But there's a certain ‘mafia’ that develops around these businesses (Managing Director of RAGEM, 2016).
Such informality obeys a “practical norm” (Olivier de Sardan, 2019), in the sense of a routine practice that is statistically dominant in the market's trading space. Implemented by local traders who react in the same way in the face of competition between them for customers’ business, this practical norm is fully internalised in their professional habitus. RAGEM understood this, making concessions by allowing them to unpack their goods beyond the perimeter delimited by the red line but specifying that these items should not be transformed into permanent displays that might impede the free movement of emergency vehicles. However, nothing has been done, and the occupation of common areas that continues blocked access and circulation routes is the subject of a daily tug-of-war between RAGEM and the market traders.
The continuing growth of the number of stalls comes with significant risks, because the competition between neighbouring shops to occupy the square metres remaining free ends up in passageways becoming completely obstructed. They are cluttered with makeshift metal or wood constructions that prevent rapid emergency access to the centre of the market. As a result, the traders’ practical rules have reproduced the same risk factors that were at the root of the devastating 2003 fire.
Regulating Access to Sales Outlets: Clientelism and Corruption
Officially it is RAGEM that oversees the allocation of sales spaces and shops for rent, but in reality, its control is limited here. Legally, traders in the market are only tenants not owners. Holders of a sales space, one that legally belongs to the city, must pay rent to the latter, taking the status of “tenants.” This means that if a trader goes bankrupt, dies, or decides to leave, their business assets pass into the hands of RAGEM's management committee for reallocation. In principle, if a trader decides to leave, they should go to RAGEM's offices to formally announce their departure to the management committee, which meets, evaluates the available space, and decides on its reallocation based on the pending rental applications from those on the waiting list. However, RAGEM's representative confessed that it is very rare for this to happen, as all the traders consider the marketplace to be their property.
Rejection of the principle of rental is widespread across Africa.
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In Ouahigouya, Jacob and Leu had previously noted in 2007 the extent to which the status of “tenant” was poorly received by traders: What bothers us about paying [rent] is that it never ends, until you die. If there was a fixed price, [XOF] 2 or 3 million, you know that if you finish paying you’ll be the owner, it's better, we’d prefer it, and we wouldn't be tired any longer (2014: 7).
Transactions are regularised like this: the trader goes to the RAGEM office to ask for their rental file to be updated, even though their name does not appear on the list of people who have been allocated a space, and when asked who awarded the shop to them, the individual in question explains that the previous tenant went bankrupt and preferred to “sell” their shop to them. No one knows how much they paid for it. In general, these new buyers wait for between six and twelve months after making their purchase before going to RAGEM with official documents signed by the police or by a notary who certifies the transfer: I’m here. It's been two years and I’ve paid with such and such a trader who left. The file has to be redone in my name because you see since then, I’m the one who's been paying the rent. Here are my receipts. I pay every day (A.K., trader).
What does RAGEM do in this case? If it was just anyone, we’d confiscate the shop, but it's a trader, so we’re taking it away from them and giving it to who? To another trader? So, it's better not to look for problems and to hand the shop over to the person who's there. We redo the contract together. We have no choice. It's forbidden, but they present us with a fait accompli (Managing Director of RAGEM, 2016). You must understand that we went through a period of laissez-faire in this country when powerful people who were involved in trade didn't pay what they owed the state and got away with it completely. So, what can we do? We’re not in politics, and that's the way it is. City Hall is doing its best. For example, after the shopkeepers’ revolt following the looting by mutinous soldiers in 2011,
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rents were reduced by 25 per cent because some shops had been broken into (Managing Director of RAGEM, 2016).
On the one hand, financial backers and insurance companies demand that the board should ensure that safety and risk-prevention rules are complied with. On the other, RAGEM is forced to deal with the cronyism and corruption of “powerful people” who take advantage of the current political context to speculate on commercial bankruptcies. There are also brokers who spot failing traders and put them in touch with wealthy potential buyers. They offer the bankrupt trader XOF 10, 15, or 20 million to sell “their” shop. The deal is tempting, so the bankrupt trader will accept the money and set up a new informal business on the public highway. During our survey in the market, traders complained about the high rent charged by RAGEM, but it turned out that the latter was renting premises at a reasonable “social” rate: XOF 9000 a month for a shop and XOF 500–750 a month for a storage facility. The “expensive” rent of XOF 50,000–100,000 a month the traders complained about was in actual fact being collected by the “original owner” of the shop, who only paid RAGEM the legal rent – XOM 9000 a month. 20
The inability to prevent these illegal practices vis-à-vis occupying retail space and selling and subletting shops at prohibitive prices continues to hurt RAGEM. It is RAGEM that the subtenants accuse of charging high rents. When the board criticises certain traders for their speculative practices, the traders retort that it wants to prevent them from doing business and becoming well-off. Today, there are traders who own a dozen or so shops at the market and “place” the managers they have selected there, who pay them a monthly rent five to ten times higher than the legal rent. Senior civil servants and local notables are also said to own shops. As shared in interview: “It's a kind of mafia that doesn't speak its name. We’ve been asked to think about how to stop this speculation, but how? You need very strong political power to stop it” (Managing Director of RAGEM, 2016).
Highlighted hereby is the role of key political actors in neutralising the regulation of the market's acceptable selling areas. This phenomenon also exists in other African countries, where the same situation of dependence prevails and thus governance of the marketplace similarly defers to political clientelism. The failure of regulatory control also explains the spread of informal practices, the direct consequence of which is overcrowding – in our context, at Rood Woko market. The market was initially designed to house 3145 official traders, but “invitations” from relatives and “permits” of all kinds have pushed the total number of both formal and informal traders active on-site up to around 12,000 at present. If we add regular visitors and other customers to this figure, the market is home on a daily basis to around 20,000 people using its rapidly deteriorating, undersized infrastructure and facilities. One consequence of this spread of illegal transactions and a black market for the allocation of spaces at Rood Woko market has been the “neutralisation” of RAGEM's regulations, making it impossible to exert control in the manner required by law. Another major outcome is the violation of all safety standards applying to the market traders’ workspaces and increased exposure to the risk of fire.
Conclusion
In this paper, we have highlighted the complexity of the normative pluralism and regulation methods in the organisation and performance of traders’ work at Rood Woko market. Their endeavours are in fact regulated by both official and practical norms, the latter individual and collective in nature. These different normative logics co-exist, sometimes contradicting each other, sometimes operating in conjunction with one another. On occasion, they consist of unofficial rules that do not necessarily contradict the official ones. For example, in areas that are not regulated by the public authorities, such as setting up self-help networks to obtain various types of financial, economic, and social aid and support, the practical norms of informal organisations fill the space that has been left by official regulations’ shortcomings (Rubbers, 2007).
Regulating the work of small traders at the Great Market in Ouagadougou is a complex phenomenon. Small traders operate in a context of normative pluralism in which boundaries between the formal and informal economies are blurred. Regulations of diverse origins are thus combined at several levels of business activity. In this situation, we have shown that the activities of self-employed small traders are regulated through in part through their semi-autonomous efforts, but traders are also involved with and constrained by forms of joint regulation developed and carried out in tandem with RAGEM, the manager of the market infrastructure, and with traders’ associations and unions, which play a fundamental role in the collective regulation of some of the essential aspects of small-scale trade. As a result, the work of self-employed traders is embedded in a wider social and political matrix that constrains its management in various ways.
We described a case where the joint regulation of traders’ work has proved unstable. In fact, autonomous regulation by traders increases as RAGEM's control becomes weaker. At this stage, however, the practical labour principles that the traders impose on the market's official regulator come into conflict with official workplace safety standards, thus generating a known risk of exposure to fire hazards. In seeking to understand the resistance of practical standards underpinning stall construction to official safety oversight mechanisms, we found that these practical standards were based on a long-standing professional habitus and deep-rooted beliefs among traders who have continued to eschew the adoption of safety standards.
This regulation of market space clearly highlights the complex interplay of formal and informal processes in the regulation of market traders’ work. The relative autonomy of small traders when it comes to organising their activity and regulating the way they work is an unstable arrangement that evolves according to patronage networks and the state of the power relations between the representatives of traders’ groups on the one hand, and RAGEM, which is responsible for the official regulation of the market, on the other. The regulation of the work of traders at Rood Woko market in Ouagadougou is an exemplary case of the complex forms of regulation that help organise traders’ operations perpetually straddling the formal and the informal.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche, International Labour Organization (grant number Syndicalisme au quotidien en Afrique, APERP-WBI).
