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Over the past few years, the phenomenon of immigrant entrepreneurship has attracted overwhelming research curiosity in West Africa. However, scholarships about the entrepreneurial entry motivations of West African itinerant immigrant retailers and their sources of start-up capital are still nascent issues. Employing a cross-sectional concurrent embedded mixed methods design, this paper surveys the driving factors and sources of funding for 779 immigrant entrepreneurs and interviews nine immigrant key informants in the Accra Metropolis of Ghana. The results indicate that most of the immigrants entered into their itinerant retail businesses mainly because of their inability to secure alternative livelihood for survival in the labor market. The study further found that about a third of the immigrants financed their itinerant retail businesses using earnings from the sale of credited wares from their fellow entrepreneurs from the same ethnic group. These findings underscore the utility of ethnic networking as a resource in establishing immigrants' businesses. Being mostly necessity-driven entrepreneurs, policy measures should be aimed at enrobing them into the tax bracket rather than rid them of the informal retail sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A few studies in West Africa describe the state of borders, particularly their poorly governed and porous nature. This study strove to add to the scant literature by assessing the cross-border migration patterns (modes of travel and routes of entry) of seven hundred and seventy-nine (779) West African itinerant immigrant retailers in the Accra Metropolitan Area of Ghana. The study was cross-sectional and adopted the concurrent nested mixed methods research approach. Interview schedule and interview guide were used to collect the data for analysis. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21 was used to analyse the quantitative data. The results show that most of the immigrants travelled to their destination (Ghana) by land, using buses and mostly through unapproved routes. Immigrants without travel documents and those who regarded border officials as extortionists were amongst those who mostly travelled through unapproved routes. Statistically, significant relationships were found between routes of entry and key demographic variables such as country of origin, gender, and marital status. It emerged that immigrants who were unmarried men and those from Togo, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Nigeria have the highest odds of migrating to the destination through unapproved routes. The study recommends that government through the Ghana Immigration Service should roll out effective border surveillance to ensure the orderly and regular migration of immigrants into the country. Also, any migration management policy which aims at stemming the current migration trend should be contextualised by taking into account the background characteristics of the immigrants involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In West Africa, studies on migration and livelihoods are mostly limited to internal migrants. This study analyzed the livelihood activities of itinerant West African migrant traders in the Accra Metropolitan Area, using mixed methods approach. The study which was guided by the framework for migration and itinerant migrant trade surveyed 779 itinerant immigrant traders and interviewed 12 key informants. Descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression were the main analytical techniques used. The results showed that most of the immigrant traders were young, unmarried males with no formal education and their main trading activity was itinerant retailing of foot wears/leather belts/bags and herbal medicines. As regards their livelihood status, female immigrant traders and those who were younger (< 20 years) were less likely to have improved livelihood status. Moreover, while immigrant traders of food products were more likely to have a deteriorated livelihood status, those engaged in the sale of durable products (electronics and accessories) were most likely to achieve improved livelihood status. The study recommends that itinerant West African migrant traders should invest more of their resources in the sale of electronics and accessories as it has the highest potential of guaranteeing secured and improved livelihoods. Any form of business support aim at improving the livelihood status of itinerant immigrant traders should be focused on young and female itinerant traders and those engaged in the sale of food-related items because they were less likely to maintain improved livelihood status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]