Towards De-Criminalizing the Angolan Informal Market

Abstract

With the end of the civil war in 2002, the Angolan Government turned its attention to cleaning up Luanda, and transforming it into a modern “world-class” city. The chaotic and unsanitary informal markets and the surrounding musseques were targeted for eradication. Informality had long been associated with criminality and the State campaigned to restore “order” to the post-war economy. Public opinion and the attitudes of the state, as expressed in the public media, ranged over more than two decades, between the criminalization and the formalization of the informal economy. With the decline of Angola’s petroleum-fueled economy after 2016, informality became central for the livelihood of urban families. Despite attempts to eliminate the informal economy by force, the National Development Plan 2018-2022 conceded that the informal economy made up 40% of the national economy and 80.1 % of all employment of which 73% are women. De-criminalization of the informal market began only during the pandemic years after 2020. Street sellers braved the quarantine to provide food and essential commodities to Luanda's locked-down population. From 2021, the Government adopted a new “transformative” approach, under the banner of the Informal Economy Transition Programme (PREI), which reversed the aggressive strategy that had failed to “stamp-out’ the informal economy and hoped to tax it instead. However, the pattern of cyclical repression and tolerance prevails. There is a close link to electoral cycles and the promises of reform that are offered periodically to an electorate, the majority of whom earn their livelihoods in the informal markets.