ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a link between very localized developments in a single village, and the wider regional, national and even global processes that frame the development of the rural non-farm sector in Africa. In terms of resource use, the non-farm sector remains essentially complementary with agriculture, such that households with buoyant agricultural incomes tend to be those who have benefitted most from developments in the non-farm sector, and vice-versa. A great deal more research is needed into the informal insitutional context that underpins the growth of the non-farm sector, with a view to replacing the blind confidence that appears to have been placed in its capacities, with a more realistic assessment of its potential in different contexts. Specific policy measures are needed to address problems of access and effective resource use within the non-farm sector itself. To address the issue of 'de-agrarianization', the long-term evidence suggests that there is no overall trend away from agricultural livelihoods in the Nigerian savanna.
