ABSTRACT
Once viewed as at best a caboose on the engine of growth, African informal economies have been rebranded as a source of entrepreneurial dynamism, new consumer markets and hidden levers of growth. This chapter challenges the tendency to shift from one stereotyped view of African informal economies to another and encourages a comparative analysis of institutional organisation within divergent types of African informal economies. Two different types of differentiated informal economy analysis are identified. The first focuses on making informal economies “legible” but tends to concentrate on distinguishing between informal institutional arrangements that are useful to global capital, and those that are not. The second perspective involves a “varieties of African informal economies” approach, focusing on structural differences in organisation and developmental effects, based on comparison among West, Central and Southern African informal economies. Attention to size, the nature of the state, and informal business systems offers a more effective lens into the developmental potential of informal economies in various African countries and indicates a need for more differentiated policy approaches to growth promotion and inclusion of African informal economies.
