26.03.2014 – Among informal workers in Niamey

The African Regional Seminar – “Building Strong Unions: Organising Informal Transport Workers” – was successfully concluded on Thursday 27 March, after more than two days of intense and productive discussions. This was the first major event of the ITF Informal Transport Workers Project, bringing together leaders from twenty-four transport unions from Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinée-Conakry, Kenya, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, Uganda, and Zambia – thirteen countries in all.

The seminar, facilitated by GLI and the ITF, shared and discussed strategies for the successful organisation of informal transport workers, the inclusion of women workers, and the revision and reform of trade union structures and procedures to enable informal workers to play a full and active part. A full report of the seminar will be available shortly.

The seminar was hosted by Syndicat National des Travailleurs Autonomes de l’Economie Informelle du Niger (SYNATRA), the informal economy workers’ union in Niger, the project ‘mentor union’ for Francophone Africa. SYNATRA is affiliated to the ITF and to StreetNet  International – the international organisation of street vendors and market traders.