Olayiwola (2001), noted that anyone who is an employer or self-employed and who does not belong to the government or public sector in Nigeria is believed to be operating in the private sector. The sizes of private enterprises vary from micro and small-scale enterprises (which are predominantly informal) to medium and large-scale enterprises in Nigeria. Eleazu (1996) and Anyanwu (1997) classified the Nigerian private sector into two sub-sectors; the organized (formal) private sector and the unorganized (informal) private sector. The organized (formal) private sector in Nigeria include most activities in manufacturing, mining, construction, commerce, finance and the incorporated part of road transportation. These are usually coordinated under …show more content…
The unorganized (informal) sub-sector consists of indigenous economic activities such as food processing, barbing, shoe shining, hairdressing, mechanic repair works, crafts, small scale industries, and retailing (Abumere, 1998:6). The informal sub-sector in Nigeria contains millions of individual proprietors, petty traders, artisans, self employed craftsmen and unit transport operators (Obadan, 1993: 14). The informal private enterprises often help to reduce the marginal private cost of trading by expanding their members’ assess to transport and credit facilities, collecting, processing, and disseminating information that individual members might have found difficult to acquire on their own, and processing where the government does not provide the necessary institutional and physical market structure. In terms of size, the Nigerian informal private sector is obviously large and it is larger than the formal/organized private sector (Abumere 2002: 5). Fapohunda (1975) put the estimate of the informal sector in Nigeria in terms of total employment between 50 and 75 percent. The size of the informal Sector (relative to the formal sector) is however, an indicator of the low level of development since it suggests an inverse relationship between the size of informal sector and the level of economic development. This poses a challenge for development process and effort, as the informal sector constitute a policy target for private sector development
Lora Jo Foo. “The Yale Law Journal”, Vol. 103, No. 8, Symposium: The Informal Economy
Gabon’s labor force works in three sectors, agriculture, industry and commerce, and services. Even though agriculture supplies only 8% of the GDP it makes up 65% of the labor force. Workers raise foods such as; cassava, plantains, sugarcane, corn (maize), peanuts (groundnuts), bananas, palm oil, and cacao.
One of the largest industries within Sierra Leone is mining industry due to it's natural resources such as diamonds. This has caused an issue of food production as many of the youths in Sierra Leone have chosen mining over agriculture. The mining industry offers the potential of making large sums of money so many workers are switching due to “the lure of striking it rich”(Grant Andrew, 2007) . The idea of workers making lager sums of money in other industries is one of the main reasons why their is a labour shortage in the agriculture sector. Although researchers found that “Flooding the labour market in the diamond sector will further reduce the already
Niger, home of the free flowing Niger River, is a Sub-Saharan, western African nation. Sadly, it is an extremely poor country because part of the country is desert and less than 3% open for crop use. The present economic situation is bleak at best. Yet, the vibrant tradition and history of this country lives today in its tribes and its people even through all of its adversities. From severe droughts to military coups to a dysfunctional government to the culture has stayed strong.
The Congolese economy is excessively based in the oil sector, which represents about 52% of its GDP, 85% of its exports, and 70% of public revenue. The industry, non-oil sector, despite to Congo’s great potential is underdeveloped. The GDP was $12.6 billion and GDP per capita $3,700. Formerly ranked as a lower-middle- income country, per capita income has declined steadily since the late 1980s. The inflation and annual real growth were respectively 2.6% and -1.6%. We may significantly notice that more of the Congolese economic activities are not reflected the in GDP data and took place in the informal sector. The GDP by sector was represented as follow, industry (65%), agriculture (5%), and services
We have positioned advantages and disadvantages of being formal/informal to better understand the challenges in both circumstances. However, it is necessary to closely analyse the precedence of successful formalization as well as successful informal institutions in order to challenge modern economic paradigms in development economics.
Ohemeng, Frank, L.K. and Leone, Robert P. “Should Public Sector be RUN like a Business.” Approaching Public Administration. Edmond Montgomery Publications Limited, (2011), P. 1-362.
Simply put the informal economy refers to those economic activities that are neither taxed nor monitored by a government and are therefore not included in that government's Gross National Product (GNP) However in literature this phenomenon is discussed using different concepts such as informal, unofficial, irregular, parallel second underground, underground, grey markets, subterranean, hidden, invisible, unrecorded, shadow, ghosting and moonlighting. Illegal or criminal activities such as drug dealing or prostitution have been excluded from this definition, as have exchanges of unpaid work. My paper is therefore prepared with this omission in mind.
Business Sector includes firms who seek profits by producing goods and services. Businesses utilise factors of production and people provided by the household sector to produce goods and
Nigeria, with its prodigous oil and natural gas reserves, has the potential to be one of the most affluent places on the planet, were it not for the rampant corruption that defines it. Instead, it is the 20th poorest country in the world1. Much like the guanxi of China, Nigeria practices prebendalism—the use of high-level positions to gain personal wealth. In other words, people exchange money for political favors, which of course creates a greedy and corrupt society. The extent of this fraudulency is such that most of Nigeria's oil wealth is sucked up by one per cent of the population, while more than 60% falls below the poverty line. In fact, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has determined that 92% of Nigeria lives on less than one dollar a day2. Meanwhile, it is estimated that in the past 50 years, three to four hundred billion dollars have been stolen by government officials.
The largest petroleum-producing nation in Africa is Nigeria. The petroleum company is the main contributing factor of the GDP in the West African nation, which is also the continents, most noticeable and populous reserves. Since Nigeria was under British control it has suffered socio-economic and political adversities for decades. Corrupt domestic militias and complicity of multinational corporations have rid the nation of its natural resources. The same corporations that are ridding the land and exploring the resources have hypocritically identified Nigeria as a major concern with regard to human rights and environmental degradation. The petroleum business in Nigeria dynamically impacts its economy so much that “oil and gas exports accounted for more than 98% of export earnings and about 83% of federal government revenue, as well as generating more than 40% of its GDP.” Just to be reminiscent on this fact, the petroleum business accounts for almost the entire exporting business of a country so it raises the question of, where is the income going and how is it bring redistributed?
Since economic development and growth cannot be discussed in isolation of a referenced community, society or nation, efforts will be made in this lecture to relate essentially to the economic development parameters in the Nigerian
The concept of informal sector stems from early 1970s, when economic anthropologist Keith Hart conducted his research in Ghana having found out it not only existed but expanded. Later it was accepted by ILO, (International Labour Organization) perceiving the range in which marginal workforce turned into the profitable enterprises. It was followed up with the International Labour conference in 2002 broadening its concept to an economy wide phenomenon involving the jobs and workers inside (ILO, 2013). There are also various definitions incorporated by the various economist and sociologists, but ILO Resolution of 2002 delivered the one commonly applied in many states: «The informal economy comprises half to three-quarters of all non-agricultural employment in developing countries. Although it is hard to generalize concerning the quality of informal employment, it most often means poor employment conditions and is associated with increasing poverty. Some of the characteristic features of informal employment are lack of protection in the event of non-payment of wages, compulsory overtime or extra shifts, lay-offs without notice or compensation, unsafe working conditions and the absence of social benefits such as pensions, sick pay and health insurance. Women, migrants and other vulnerable groups of workers who are excluded from other opportunities have little choice but to take informal low-quality jobs (ILO, 2002)”.
Corruption can be defined as the use of entrusted power to accumulate public wealthy for personal benefit. Corruption is not peculiar to any country, continent or state; it is sure a global issue which is an endemic to all government all over the world. However, corruption is prevalent in the Niger delta region of Nigeria; public officers in this oil producing state of Nigeria are corrupt. Consequently, it has defied the Niger delta from developing politically and economically which has left the states reputation in a mess. Radicalization of youths, abject poverty and -political instability are the three leading effects of corruption in the Niger delta region of Nigeria.
Ghana is a country located on the west coast of Africa; Africa is a resource rich continent that supplies much of the world with diamonds, oils, petroleum and more through trade. The country of Ghana has undergone revision in their labor forces in the past twenty years, Ghana has moved more from the traditional labor sector like agriculture to more modern sectors. One of the more modern sectors of Ghana today is the industrial sector which is relatively small and is mainly operated by the Ghanaian government. The industrial sector was expanded by the government and president to employ the unemployed and promote investment in the private sector. After the 1990’s Ghana has seen consistent economic growth but their economic growth from the last eight years has increased tremendously. In the most recent of years ( after 2004) the growth rate of Ghana started to accelerate and it increased to over six percent between a five year span from 2005-2010, with the average being above seven percent in 2000 and 2009. The increase in sectors has taken Ghana from a poverty rate of more than half 51.7% to 28.5% by the year 2005. Before Ghana’s independence on March 6, 1957 most of the country’s gdp was contributed to agriculture and the industry sector was less of a contributor. Recently, between the years of 2001-2010 the roles of whom or what contributes to the gdp has switched. Most of the contribution to the gdp is that of the service sector. Even though, the service sector has risen to the top of the economy, agriculture is slowly but surely is rising back to the top of Ghana’s highest gdp contributor by the way of nontraditional exports like automobiles and cocoa. The service sector of Ghana provides many residents w...