Economic Practices of African Street Youth: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana and Zimbabwe

Little is known about how street connected young people maintain livelihoods and how their earning strategies change as they enter adulthood. Living precariously in street environments, markets, and informal settlements, street children and youth develop complex responses to their social and economic marginalization, working on the fringes of the formal and informal urban economy. This chapter draws from research undertaken with street children and youth in three African cities to highlight the importance of the informal economy and reveal how income is generated to meet daily basic needs and the compromises and vulnerabilities these create for young people Growing up on the Streets.