The Informal Sector in Africa

I don’t know if you guys know, but my research is on informal economy in West Africa…. This morning, I got a confirmation that I am on the right track. I saw George Ayittey’s Ted Talk presentation and it reinforced what I always thought: the real economy in most African countries is the informal economy. MacGaffey, who did a lot of research on the informal economy in Central Africa has already called it the real economy in one of her books, but I think this needs to be said more often. Think about this: most of Africans are rural dwellers… then wonder about how much government and the formal economy ever penetrated into rural Africa. People have been, and still are, involved in economic activities that are not captured by the official economic figures of the government. Even researchers into the informal economy in African countries, who have devoted much time to studying the informal sector in urban areas, have not paid sufficient attention to the livelihood of rural dwellers. I would not be as dramatic as to say that Africa’s ‘development’ – whatever that much abused word means in this context – is to be found in the informal economy; what I would say is that if we are interested in African economies, and in knowing more about how Africans make a living despite the dismal economic figures we know so well, we better take a look at the informal sector.