This is why workplace childcare provision to support street vendors and market traders is an essential strategy for the region as it would reach many women workers, particularly in dense urban areas.
In a recently released e-book, Child Care in Markets, WIEGO highlights childcare models and policies for informal workers from Ghana, Rwanda, and South Africa that can inspire regional initiatives. Care responsibilities are a significant barrier to women’s employment. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), 41 percent of women in Africa report being out of work due to caregiving duties, compared with only 3 percent of men. The data underscore a stark gender gap in care distribution. Despite this, many women cannot afford to stop working, as their incomes are essential for their families’ survival. Informal employment remains their only viable option because it offers flexibility, autonomy, and proximity to home, enabling them to balance paid work with caregiving responsibilities.
Workplace Childcare Provision and Why It Matters to Informal Workers
For most women working in the informal economy, workplace childcare provision remains a distant dream. Childcare responsibilities in Africa are increasingly recognized among formal-sector workers, resulting in the establishment of childcare services and creches in offices, hospitals, and factories. However, little attention is given to workplace childcare services for informal workers. Many of these women live and work in informal settlements, where delivering essential services ranging from clean water and sanitation to health care, transportation, and early childhood care and education is inadequate.
Women in informal employment may also travel long distances to work, creating a strain between earning a livelihood and fulfilling caregiving responsibilities. Without access to safe, affordable, and high-quality childcare near their homes or workplaces, many are forced to either leave their children in unsafe conditions or bring them to hazardous work environments. The lack of child care can result in lost income or push women into more precarious forms of employment, according to ILO. Establishing workplace childcare is not a luxury but a necessity: it reduces stress, supports children’s well-being, and enhances women’s productivity. To promote equity in urban planning and service delivery, workplace childcare must be prioritized as part of broader support for women informal workers and their families.
A mother with her baby at the Warwick market.
Pop-up childcare centers were set up at the Warwick market in Durban, South Africa.
Locally Led Solutions Center the Needs of Women Workers
The Child Care in Markets project, led by WIEGO in partnership with the Accra Focal Cities team, Durban’s Asiye eTafuleni (AeT), and Syndicat des travailleurs domestiques et indépendants de l’economie informelle (SYTRIECI)—a trade union for workers in informal employment in Rwanda—has facilitated the creation of childcare solutions grounded in the lived realities of informal workers. In Accra, Kigali, and Durban markets, where thousands of women workers earn their livelihoods daily, change is being driven from the ground up. Women vendors, caregivers, and grassroots organizations are setting up and running informal childcare centers not through government mandates but through their initiatives to address their childcare needs.
WIEGO’s e-book documents this transformative work and offers a pathway to how care systems can become more inclusive, equitable, and grounded in the lived realities of women in the informal economy.
Stories From the Countries
Ghana
A bold initiative took root in the heart of Makola Market, where tensions between local officials and market leaders ran deep. Organizations came together to develop the childcare service guidelines rooted in the realities of informal traders. This advocacy project aimed to ensure street vendors and market traders had a voice in shaping policies affecting their children’s care. Despite the volatile environment, the WIEGO team fostered dialogue, built trust, and established a reference group representing all stakeholders. Together, they co-created a groundbreaking set of early childhood development (ECD) guidelines tailored for market settings. For the first time, informal workers directly shaped a national ECD strategy. The vision is for these childcare standards to be formally adopted by Ghana’s Department of Children and amplified through global networks.
South Africa
Inspired by mothers who ingeniously turned packing boxes into makeshift cradles while working in markets, AeT launched pop-up “care crates”—modular, repurposed units that provide safe, nurturing spaces for toddlers. What started as a World Health Organization project promoting breastfeeding evolved into a solution to a deeper issue: lack of accessible childcare. With apartheid-era geography still forcing many traders to live on the city’s edges, mothers often lost income due to early childcare closures. These pop-up centers, located steps from market stalls, allow women to work full days while their children thrive nearby.
This pop-up initiative built capacity, fostered awareness, and engaged officials, with ECD champions in Durban’s inner city amplifying the message. Following a successful pilot, AeT aims to formally register the Warwick Junction centers under South Africa’s Vangasali programme, pushing this community-driven solution into national policy.
Rwanda
In Rwanda, the push for functional childcare in informal urban settings is turning policy into practice. Markets like those in Ghana and South Africa are lifelines for hundreds of informal workers. But for many traders, income is unstable, and children face malnutrition, poor health, and a cycle of poverty. Recognizing this, the Rwandan government introduced reforms like the 2012 Strategy for National Child Care Reform and the National Early Childhood Development Programme Strategic Plan 2018–2024. Yet, implementation remains the biggest hurdle. The Ministry of Education called on civil society for support, and SYTRIECI responded by training members across six sites in four districts on the importance of ECD centers.
In Kigali, where markets are being redeveloped, SYTRIECI advocates for integrating childcare spaces from the outset, facilitating dialogue between traders and municipal authorities. They are now leading research to assess the status of childcare provision for women working in and around these markets. These insights will inform a multi-stakeholder platform to develop guidelines supporting the government’s childcare efforts in markets.
Looking Ahead
Stories from Ghana, South Africa, and Rwanda show that inclusive, community-rooted childcare solutions are not only possible but essential. We must embed workplace childcare services into the fabric of markets and other informal work environments—not as an afterthought but as a fundamental infrastructure that supports both livelihoods and child development.
When childcare is designed around the daily realities of market traders and street vendors, it catalyzes equity, economic resilience, and long-term social change. These community-driven solutions are not simply plugging gaps; they are also transforming how we approach care, labor, and justice in our cities. Let us harness this momentum to ensure every working parent can access safe, dignified, and supportive childcare regardless of where they live or work.
WIEGO Child Care Initiative
WIEGO’s Child Care Initiative has made more visible the needs of market vendors, street traders, domestic workers, and waste pickers and has given a voice to workers in informal employment. Investing in public childcare services can lead to a triple dividend by improving education and health outcomes among marginalized children; facilitating women’s participation in the labor market, including transitioning from informal to formal employment; and creating new decent work opportunities for women and men in the care sector. The Child Care in Markets e-book is a critical resource, with stories, data, and design innovations from across three countries. It shows what is possible when women’s voices are centered in the creation of care systems.
Tracy Koske is a childcare specialist currently serving as the Childcare Project Manager at WIEGO.
Sneha Sharma is an international gender researcher and advocacy specialist. She has worked across various organizations, including UNICEF, Ford Foundation, ICRW, and, most recently, WIEGO.
Childcare Stories
