Conclusion: Informal Economy as a Springboard for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development in Sub-Saharan Africa

This chapter draws our concluding thoughts on the book project titled “Innovation, Entrepreneurship and the Informal Economy in sub–Saharan Africa: A Sustainable Development Agenda”. Specifically, the chapter discussed the informal economy as a springboard for entrepreneurship development and innovation in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Informal economy SMEs in the SSA region represent a formidable force within the economic and social context of the region. However, these SMEs are constrained by the paucity of formal institutional responsiveness to implementing a practical entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem. Therefore, we adopted the institutional logic theory and synthesized it into a self-reliance theorization as a workable option for the sustainability of the Informal economy SMEs’ entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem in SSA. We drew the curtains by supporting the notion of ecosystem resilience as an adaptive pathway to self-reliance theorization and ensuring the success of both the entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem and the firms operating in the informal economy of SSA.