Towards De-criminalising the Angolan Informal Market - What Ever Happened to the Roque

Roque Santeiro Market, the biggest and most important informal market in Angola and said to be the largest openair market in Africa, was forcibly closed in 2010.1 Angola’s informal economy grew out of the indigenous African markets of the colonial era. After independence in 1975, it took on an increasingly important role in supplying goods, services, and employment as the state-managed economy eroded under Cold-War conflict and weak management. Roque Santeiro was born in the war years and permitted to flourish without oversight and little government intervention. The ‘Roque,’ known as the ‘shopping centre for the poor,’ became the centre of Luanda’s economic life, functioning as a wholesale supplier to other district and neighbourhood informal markets. With the end of the civil war in 2002, the Angolan Government turned its attention to cleaning up Luanda and turning it into a modern world-class city. The chaotic and unsanitary informal markets and the surrounding slums were targeted for eradication. Informality had long been associated with criminality, and the state campaigned to restore ‘order’ to the post-war economy. The ‘Roque’ was the most famous victim. The market’s closure displaced thousands of traders and support workers, who had to seek alternative livelihoods in the sprawling suburbs of Luanda. Despite the Government’s campaign to formalise the economy, a decade after the closure of Roque Santeiro, the informal sector still provided 67 percent of urban employment.