Effectiveness of Street Vendors Associations among Women Street Vendors: A Case Study of Nairobi CBD

This study was occasioned by the disparity gaps between allied associations supporting the rights of street vendors to operate in public spaces, the membership of street vendors into street vending associations and street vendors being incorporated in urban planning. The study assessed the effectiveness of street vendor associations among women street vendors in Nairobi City County based on the following objective; to examine factors influencing membership in street vendor associations. A descriptive survey study design was used to collect both qualitative and quantitative data using questionnaires, interviews, and content analysis. Snowball sampling was used in select 204 female street vendors from the streets. Quantitative data was filtered, coded, and analyzed using the Social Sciences Statistical Package (SPSS) while qualitative data was analyzed using verbatim quotes. The standard deviation, computation average and chi-square were performed to show the rankings for benefits and challenges of women`s street vending associations. The findings of the computation average showed that leadership opportunity was the highly ranked benefit (mean=0.913). While poor leadership was the most highly ranked challenge in street vendor’s associations (mean=1.651). The findings of the chi-square revealed that all benefits of street vendor associations influenced membership as their p-values were less than 0.05; Leadership opportunity (p=0.000), Welfare and access to credit (P=0.002), training in business (P=0.001) and networking (P=0.003). The study concludes that street vendors associations among women street vendors in Nairobi city county have been very effective in creating collective synergy rather than individual effects of each member. The study recommends association leaders to acquire leadership and management skills to enable them to carry out their mandate fully