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COVID-19 pandemic has undermined the functionality of formal and informal economies globally, with developing countries suffering the social, political and economic effects of the pandemic. Economic downturns in the global south, including Nigeria, have given rise to declining state control in the face of human insecurity. This study, hinging on the neoliberal political economy thesis, examines the economic crisis and declining state control the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown engendered in managing the security situation in Nigeria. The study, utilizing the dominant qualitative methods, comprising interviews, focus group discussions, and documented evidence, highlighted that the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown disproportionately affected the people, mainly poor people, households and communities in different parts of the country. The failure of the government to engage in an effective social protection policy generated discontent and led to criminal activities undermining security in Nigeria. The study concludes that the insecurity and economic crisis the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown engendered have weakened the state's authority in Nigeria. The study suggests that engaging effective social protection policy presents an opportunity for mitigating security challenges to bring about socioeconomic stability in Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most African states informal motorcycle transportation is a popular means of urban and semi-urban mobility. While studies have examined the transportation–economic development nexus, the political economy of the ban of motorcycles and shift from informal commercial motorcycle to tricycle operation for urban/peri-urban mobility in Nigeria has been grossly neglected in academic discourses. Using a qualitative approach and neoliberal political economy framework, this study investigates how the ban of commercial motorcycles and their replacement with commercial tricycles have impacted urban/peri-urban mobility in Nigerian cities. Contrary to the expectation that replacing motorcycles with tricycles would increase the vulnerability of the majority of informal transport operators and constrain transportation of urban/peri-urban poor without personal/private means of mobility, the replacement has facilitated the development of road infrastructure, reduced road crashes, minimized motorcycle induced crimes, and improved the income of informal transport operators in Nigerian cities. The study concludes that sustainable use of commercial tricycles for urban and peri-urban transportation is relevant for achieving organized and safe informal commercial transportation in Nigeria and other less-developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown policy it engendered restricted the entrepreneurial freedom and skills promoted by the neoliberal market structure. It also undermined the strings of social networks and collective organisation which protect the individual informal workers, particularly women in the peri-urban areas. Using the qualitative dominant methods, this research probed into the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on informal women workers in peri-urban communities in Nigeria. The study argued that the COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying lockdown devastated the informal economic activities of women in peri-urban areas due largely to lack of social protection programmes to support vulnerable populations. It also undermined Nigeria-Cameroon trade relation which is a major source of livelihood for most people, reduced the personal income of informal workers in the peri-urban areas and government revenue in Taraba State. The study concluded that providing financial capital, material palliatives and affordable social protection facilities to informal women workers in peri-urban communities is relevant for sustainable economic development in Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The informal sector is an integral part of several sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries and plays a key role in the economic growth of these countries. This article used a comparative systematic review to explore the factors that act as drivers to informality in South Africa (SA) and Nigeria, the challenges that impede the growth dynamics of the informal sector, the dominant subsectors, and policy initiatives targeting informal sector providers. A systematic search of Google Scholar, Scopus, ResearchGate was performed together with secondary data collated from grey literature. Using Boolean string search protocols facilitated the elucidation of research questions (RQs) raised in this study. An inclusion and exclusion criteria became necessary for rigour, comprehensiveness and limitation of publication bias. The data collated from thirty-one (31) primary studies (17 for SA and 14 for Nigeria) revealed that unemployment, income disparity among citizens, excessive tax burdens, excessive bureaucratic hurdles from government, inflationary tendencies, poor corruption control, GDP per capita, and lack of social protection survival tendencies all act as drivers to the informal sector in SA and Nigeria. Several challenges are given for both economies and policy incentives that might help sustain and improve the informal sector in these two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Nigeria, a significant number of the active labour force exists within the informal economy. For these workers, decent work remains elusive. They are mostly unprotected by existing legal framework and lack basic work rights. One of such right is access to social protection. This lack of access to 'social protection', especially as it relates to their means of livelihood, results in exclusion and marginalisation, and violates the principles of social justice. However, the high financial and structural costs of providing the basic forms of social protection inhibits the Nigerian government from extending social protection to informal workers, even though they constitute the larger percentage of the national workforce. This therefore necessitates an innovative solution that extends social protection to informal workers, and at the same time is independent of the capacity limitations of the government. Based on a desktop research methodology, this article finds that Esusu cooperatives – an informal cooperative system popular among informal workers– represents an existing and functional structure through which social protection can be extended to Nigerian informal workers. Consequently, it is recommended that the 'Esusu Cooperative system' should be adopted and restructured as a means of extending social protection to informal workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solid waste management (SWM) is a public health service whose importance is often understated. When the solid waste management challenge is exacerbated by a public health emergency such as the Covid-19 pandemic, its real significance as an essential service becomes more apparent. The outbreak and spread of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) has led to dramatic transformations of every sector of the Nigerian society including SWM systems, where formal and informal actors co-exist often in an uneasy relationship. Unfortunately, strategies for inclusive management of solid wastes during and after the Covid-19 pandemic are lacking in Nigeria, fuelling the further exclusion of informal sector in the waste governance and policy process in Nigeria. This paper reviews the state of the Covid-19 pandemic in Nigeria, identifies policy gaps in solid waste governance and highlights the linkages between Covid-19 and SWM with a view to catalysing inclusive solid waste governance and sustainability policy in Nigeria. It is argued that acknowledging the informal economy is the critical first step towards framing a sustainable SWM policy in which primary stakeholders are involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Acta Economica is the property of University of Banja Luka, Faculty of Economics and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Informal vendors are a critical source of food security for urban residents in African cities. However, the livelihoods of these traders, and the governance constraints they encounter, are not well-understood outside of the region's capital and primate cities. This study focuses on two distinct secondary cities in Nigeria, Calabar in the South-South geopolitical zone of the country and Minna in the Middle Belt region. Interviews were collected with local and state officials in each city on the legal, institutional, and oversight functions they provide within the informal food sector. This was complemented with a survey of approximately 1097 traders across the two cities to assess their demographic profile, contributions to food security, key challenges they face for profitability, engagement with government actors, and degree of access to services in the markets. The analysis highlights two main findings. First, informal traders report less harassment by government actors than has been observed in larger Nigerian cities. At the same time, however, the enabling environment is characterized by benign neglect whereby government-mandated oversight functions are not comprehensively implemented and service delivery gaps remain a major hindrance to food safety. Second, there are important differences in the needs of traders across cities, suggesting that policies focused on food safety and improving the livelihoods of this constituency more broadly need to be properly nuanced even at the subnational level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the political economy of collective organising in the motorcycle taxi economy of Nigerian cities. Using the mixed-methods approach, this study demonstrates the nature and problems of collective organising in the motorcycle taxi economy. It notes that implementation of a neo-liberal development policy in Nigeria in the 1980s gave rise to job losses and catalysed the creation of a motorcycle taxi sub-system as a livelihood. While collective organising in the motorcycle taxi sub-system is sometimes exploited to advance the ambition of some politicians, the informal economy is often paradoxically victimised through the initiation and implementation of hostile urban policies, such as banning motorcycle taxis, soon after electoral mandates are secured. This paper, however, argues that despite the challenges, collective organising represents a struggle to influence urban policy and could present an opportunity for a new form of engagement between the state and the informal economy in development policy and urban governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of municipal solid waste has remained intractable in Nigeria despite the state’s central role in municipal solid waste management (MSWM). Policy and reforms of the MSWM system have invariably excluded the informal economy, with this exclusion frequently reinforced by uncritical implementation of neo-liberal development policies. Yet, the informal economy fortuitously remains active in solid waste collection, recycling, and disposal. This article is the aggregate outcome of an 8-year multi-stakeholder engagement in MSWM in Nigerian cities. It draws on insights from first-hand qualitative engagement with informal waste workers, interviews with key stakeholders, policy documents, and relevant literature to situate the Nigerian informal waste economy within current international development discourse. While highlighting the implications of social acceptance and inclusion of the waste economy in post-2015 MSWM and development policy, the study notes the lack of an articulate policy on MSWM in Nigeria and canvasses a specific policy to integrate the ubiquitous informal waste economy in MSWM. The paper suggests that inclusionper séis central to the sustainable development goals (SDGs), and argues that an inclusive MSWM policy in Nigeria is desirable as it maps onto the SDGs which aim to improve lives in the post-2015 development era. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article draws on fieldwork data to argue that while the reality of widespread privations does indeed play a role in generating legitimate grievances upon which social action in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta is based, those who are able to violently animate their grievances are invariably part of a very complex network of clientelism that is both intimately connected to the structures of state power at the same time and opposed to its very logic. It therefore challenges notions of Niger Delta militants as members of a disempowered and marginalized social category. It highlights the importance of social networks to the ability of youth to take advantage of perverse incentives of the oil economy and calls for policy frameworks that recognize their embeddeness within the overall architectures of power in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines how the Post-2015 commitment to economic inclusion affects informal economic actors in developing countries. It highlights the selective dynamics of inclusive market models that generate new processes of exclusion in which the most vulnerable continue to be left behind. The case of Nigeria reveals how inclusive market initiatives reinforce parallel processes of informalization, poverty and Islamic extremism in the north of the country. Fieldwork in northern Nigeria shows that inclusive initiatives are intensifying competitive struggles within the informal economy in which stronger actors are crowding out poorer, less educated and migrant actors, exacerbating disaffection and vulnerability to radicalization. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Review of African Political Economy is the property of Review of Political Economy (ROAPE) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Situations in the informal economy expose workers to dangers without opportunity for hazard pay, thereby reflecting exploitation. Based on the Marxist theory of conflict, this paper examines the extent of precarious working conditions and exploitation of workers in the Nigerian informal economy. A total of 500 respondents randomly selected from various informal economy organizations participated in the survey conducted in Lagos State, Nigeria. The findings revealed that the majority of the respondents (76.4%) had worked for up to five years consecutively, followed by a few (18%), who had worked for up to ten years consecutively. Their monthly income ranged from 10,000 naira ($60) to 80,000 naira ($485). Their mean monthly income was 30,000 naira ($182). Most of them (73.5%) worked for 10 to 12 hours daily, while 26.5% worked for seven to nine hours daily. The experience of low pay with relatively long daily working hours shows the extent of exploitation in the Nigerian informal economy. Several background characteristics, such as gender, age, level of education, and marital status influenced the workers' experience of precarious working conditions and exploitation. Therefore, there is an urgent need for a progressive workplace policy that can ensure decent work and adequate protection for workers in the Nigerian informal economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the significant contributions of women in economic development nationally, the unrecognized attitude of the government, lack of existing legal framework and policies, vagaries of informal economy and changes in the social-economic landscape have accounted largely for the closure of female enterprises in the informal economy. Using Yoruba female textile traders as a case study because these women have broken the "glass ceiling" and made a success of their textile trading, this paper examined the dynamics of entry and motivations of Yoruba women in textile trading. The paper synthesized Social Capital Theory by Coleman and Social Action Theory by Max Weber to explain the issue. It utilized a qualitative method of data collection. Eight focus group discussions and forty in-depth interviews were used to collect information from the women participants who were purposively chosen. The data reveal that parents, family/kinship members and friends had great influence in the strategic entry of women into textile trading in the Balogun market and the subsequent development of women's entrepreneurial activities. Yoruba female textile traders were motivated into textile trading because of economic and cultural values attached to the trade. This data is essential toward policy formulation for women's entrepreneurial development in the informal economy. This paper argues that any policies implemented for women entrepreneurs in the informal economy must be conceived, formulated and implemented with an in-depth understanding of the nuanced elements in the cultural domain within the social system, which the existing literature has yet to capture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The informal sector in cities of the developing world is often analyzed from the prism of urban poverty, social exclusion and limited social integration, and lack of power. While such issues have commanded considerable attention in development literature, contribution of the sector to urban governance and barriers to its social participation in the urban governance process appears to have received relatively little epistemological treatment. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to critically examine the status of solid waste management (SWM) in urban governance and constraints to participation of the informal waste sector in governance of the city of Aba, Nigeria. The paper which is framed around the Global Campaign on Urban Governance is based on a survey and focus group discussions (FGDs) with informal waste workers, and key-informant interviews (KIIs) with environment and development policy experts. Findings indicate that the sector while making clear development contributions is not recognized in SWM policy and practice. It was also found that the sector lacks education, self-organization and knowledge of civil rights for an effective social participation process. The study while arguing that effective social participation requires a supportive environment and political will acknowledges the enormity of the barriers to the informal waste sector but suggests that social innovation initiatives can potentially counter trends of social exclusion and foster greater social inclusion of the informal waste workers. Interventions to strengthen solid waste governance and development by the informal waste sector in Aba, Nigeria are also suggested. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Copyright of Economic Insights - Trends & Challenges is the property of Petroleum - Gas University of Ploiesti and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

While Nollywood, Nigeria’s video industry, is largely separate from dominant global cultural industry networks of production inputs and distribution, it is an industry that is still globally linked in a number of ways. In this article, I investigate the nature and layout of these connections via interviews with those populating these networks, from key Nollywood producers to shop owners thousands of miles from Lagos. I conclude that, instead of the formal links of dominant cultural industry networks, these links are mostly via alternative global networks, forged on the flipside of – or the gaps between – the connections that link the Network Society. Some formal international institutions have a presence, but these are largely mediated through Nollywood’s situation in global cultural industry networks. I argue that this renders Nollywood as situated in an alternative media capital, central to alternative networks, while too informal to integrate into dominant networks, and it is from this position that we can best understand Nollywood’s position in global media flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how decentralisation and informalisation are reshaping urban governance in contemporary Africa. By exploring the interface between urban institutional failures and popular organisational solutions, the paper considers how informal governance processes feed into wider structural and political outcomes. Attention paid to issues of institutional process and power relations reveals how the limited access of the poor to resources and decision-making structures may distort rather than enhance their agency within decentralised urban governance systems. Drawing on case studies of informal enterprise associations in Christian and Muslim parts of Nigeria, this paper explores the differing ways in which networks of ethnicity, class and religion are used to forge links between dynamic informal organisational systems and formal institutions of government. The varied outcomes of these efforts raise uncomfortable questions about whether the proliferation of popular networks and associations amid weak formal institutions is tipping African cities onto trajectories of popular empowerment and pro-poor growth, or instigating a downward slide into violence and urban decay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]