Why should we stop waging war against informal sector actors in Africa?

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En deviating from international labor standards, sub-Saharan Africa is once again an exception to the rule in defining its own path. Since the majority of economic activities in Africa are informal and nearly 80% of GDP comes from the informal sector, observers and experts were forced to legitimize informality as the norm, that is to say the prism through from which the analysis of African economic systems was to be carried out.

Originally, the economic factor (1) was the main determinant of analysis of the informal sector, the educational and cultural factor (2), however, sheds light on the analysis from another angle.

At the economic level, informality dates back well before independence through foreign direct investment (FDI) from Western countries to the African continent. Countries like South Africa, Kenya and even the Ivory Coast have been able to take advantage of this for some time. In the 80s, the failure of structural adjustment policies (SAP) had devastating effects (reduction of salaries, reduction in the number of civil servants, privatization of national companies, etc.) on the working population. The devaluation of the CFA Franc in 1994 will further weaken the labor market and contribute to the increase in the number of agents working in the informal sector.