Mobile phones, social media and the Maasai: Time to refresh the image
At first, I did not know what these two young men were upto during an enforced halt on our way to Kisii at the end of February this year. The road had been blocked by the local community demonstrating about land rights just a few kilometres outside of Narok, in the heart of Maasailand and […]
The multifunctionality of livestock in rural Kenya
This is an interesting research paper from Purdue’s Agricultural Economics department published in 2008. Titled Traits Affecting Household Livestock Marketing Decisions in Rural Kenya (pdf), it’s abstract informs us that: While many contemporary development programs with regard to Sub-Saharan Africa’s pastoralists promote improved livestock marketing as a way out of poverty, they also fail to […]
African Traders in Guangzhou, China: Routes, Profits, and Reasons
While digging around for information after my recent flight where I was offered an upclose and personal look at increasing informal trade between Africa and China, I came across this research paper by Yang Yang from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. A snippet from the introduction: Based on my fieldwork in Guangzhou, this paper […]
Rise of tricycle pushcarts in Mexico
ClubOrlov has a guest post from a small Mayan fishing village in Mexico by a writer only known as Albert, who observes this informal economic activity and its players closely: What struck me is that I cannot recall a time in the past decade that I have been observing these vendors when there were more […]
Scarcity as a driver for innovation
Frugality and affordability are very much in the news of late, what with the most recent essay on Change Observer and this post on Paul Polak’s new blog both highlighting similar concepts but from the point of view of very different markets. It seems to imply the trend towards frugal design or extremely affordable yet […]
Senegalese research on innovation processes in their informal ICT sector
I came across some excellent research by Dr Almamy Konte and Mariama Ndong of Senegal. While I’m sure the original working paper in French must be far better than this drafted English translation, their key points are nonetheless something to make us sit up and listen, particularly with regards to innovation in the informal economy. […]
Welcome to Bazaaristan: global informal economy being recognized
Across the globe, 1.8 billion people — a quarter of the world’s population — work off the books each day. They are paid in cash for the goods they sell and the services they provide, and due to their ubiquity, there’s a word for these merchants in nearly every language. As Robert Neuwirth reports, in […]
The role of women in informal trade in Africa
Section extract from this ARIA chapter “Informal Trade in Africa”: Women play a prominent role in informal trade, and in informal business activities in particular. These few figures are proof enough: four to five million women in West Africa are involved in collecting, processing and marketing shea nuts and butter, bringing in an estimated 80 […]
Is Africa a multinational’s opportunity or one better served by SMEs?
It is not just about the risks in Africa, since in many cases African risk may be overpriced, which creates additional opportunities for investors who know what they are doing. It is more about the challenges of doing business in a continent in which more than 70% of the population lives on less than two […]
Observed market forces acting on the changing mobile landscape in East Africa
About two years ago I remember making an observation that I couldn’t seem to see any coherent patterns anymore the way I’d been able to by surfing the net for information. Flux I called it. Everything felt like it was in transition and nothing seemed to stay steady enough to grasp, much less describe. This […]
