Informality in Africa in Relation to Sustainable Development Goals 8 and 9: Framework for Innovation and Sustainable Industrialization

This paper deconstructs the concept of informality in industrialization and manufacturing on the African continent, which has impacted inclusive and sustainable economic growth in relation to United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 8 and 9. Characteristic features of informality on the African continent are highlighted based on the International Labour Organization’s classification of an informal economy. Informality behaviour in some selected African countries’ economies is elucidated in relation to sectorial spread and gender distribution. Factors driving the growth of the informal sector such as gender disequilibrium (particularly, the feminization of poverty), low economic growth and rapid urbanization, globalization and redundancies, institutional and legal barriers, conflicts and social crisis and the adoption of capital-intensive manufacturing processes are highlighted. Frameworks to innovate the informal sector to drive Industrialization on the African continent are equally presented. Some of these frameworks include standardization of products and protocols of informal sectors, skill upscaling and training, and building an ecosystem of skill mismatch to cascade the informal sector to formal status via pooling of resources.