The urban informal sector in sub-Saharan Africa: from bad to good (and back again?)

Deborah Potts

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Urban and Rural Development Challenges Education and Labor Relations Local Economic Development and Planning

Abstract

Conceptualisations of the informal sector in terms of economic dualism have a long history, as have effective challenges to those conceptualisations. These are discussed in this paper, which then examines shifts in attitudes towards the role of the urban informal sector in sub-Saharan Africa over recent decades, with reference to these theoretical conceptualisations and other approaches. The paper then discusses the dynamics of the sector and the changing role of the African state in promoting or discouraging it and identifies an increasingly negative trend in this respect. Finally, the paper offers a comparative perspective, from north of the Limpopo, on current debates and policy pronouncements about the ‘second economy’ in South Africa.

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References

1954Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour 1973Informal Income Opportunities and Urban Employment in Ghana 2019Expectations of Modernity 1966The Development of Underdevelopment 1980Casual Work and Poverty in Third World Cities 2006‘Restoring Order’? Operation Murambatsvina and the Urban Crisis in Zimbabwe 2005Reconsidering Informality: Perspectives from Urban Africa 2006Cities in Contemporary Africa

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