Informal-formal linkages in market and street trading in Accra
Date
2016
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
This paper investigates the ways in which linkages between the informal and formal segments of an economy may yield benefits to or impose costs upon informal workers, based on views of informal traders in Accra regarding their relationships with the formal economy and its institutions. The data are drawn from the Informal Economy Monitoring Study (IEMS), with a World Bank study of informal household enterprises providing context for the IEMS-Ghana study and a basis for interpretation of its ndings. Data from 15 focus groups and a survey of 150 traders from both central and non-central locations of Accra, Ghana, are analysed in terms of traders’ relationship to the value chain, non-go-vernment institutions, government and the macroeconomy. The last two are found to exert a strong, mostly negative inuence on informal operators, offset to some extent by support from member-based organizations and non-govern-mental organisations (NGOs). Access to loans from micronance institutions was an important inuence on traders’ work and was viewed both positively and negatively. Although there are few visible direct linkages between informal operators and formal rms, they are to some extent mutually interdependent as retailers and suppliers in the value chain. Taking advantage of the potential synergy in informal-formal linkages will require government and other actors to become more proactive in facilitating, rather than denying, infrastructure, sup-port services and adequate space for informal traders. The probability of such an outcome depends on the ability of informal traders to organise themselves.
Description
Keywords
Informal economy, Informal-formal linkages, Market traders, Street vendors, Ghana
Citation
TY - BOOK AU - Anyidoho, Nana Akua AU - F. Steel, William PY - 2016/12/01 SP - 171 EP - 200 JF - African Review of Economics and Finance T1 - Informal-formal linkages in market and street trading in Accra VL - 8 ER -