Browsing by Subject "informal economy"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Open Access
    Innovation & intellectual property: collaborative dynamics in Africa
    (UCT Press, 2014) De Beer, Jeremy; Oguamanam, Chidi; Schonwetter, Tobias; Sowa, Izabella; Holman, Kristen; Kawooya, Dick; Dagne, Teshager; Adewopo, Adebambo; Chuma-Okoro, Helen; Oyewunmi, Adejoke; Ouma, Marisella; Cocchiaro, Gino; Lorenzen, Johan; Maister, Bernard; Rutert, Britta; Rizk, Nagla; Sihanya, Ben; Mgbeoji, Ikechi; Dos Santos, Fernando; Pelembe, Simão; Awad, Bassem; Abou Zeid, Perihan; Ncube, Caroline; Abrahams, Luci; Akinsanmi, Titi; Belete, Wondwossen; Ama, Njoku; Armstrong, Chris; De Beer, Jeremy; Armstrong, Chris; Oguamanam, Chidi; Schonwetter, Tobias
    In the global knowledge economy, intellectual property (IP) rights – and the innovations they are meant to spur – are important determinants of progress. But what does this mean for the nations of Africa? One view is that strong IP protection can facilitate innovation in African settings. Others say that existing IP systems are simply not suited to the realities of African innovators. This book, based on case studies and evidence collected through research across nine countries in Africa, sheds new light on the complex relationships between innovation and intellectual property. It covers findings from Egypt, Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Mozambique, Botswana and South Africa, across many sites of innovation and creativity including music, leather goods, textiles, cocoa, coffee, auto parts, traditional medicine, book publishing, biofuels and university research. Various forms of intellectual property protection are explored: copyrights, patents, trademarks, geographical indications and trade secrets, as well as traditional and informal mechanisms of knowledge governance. The picture emerging from the empirical research presented in this volume is one in which innovators in diverse African settings share a common appreciation for collaboration and openness. And thus, when African innovators seek to collaborate, they are likely to be best-served by IP approaches that balance protection of creative, innovative ideas with information-sharing and open access to knowledge. The authors, who come from a range of disciplines, are all experts in their fields, working together through the Open African Innovation Research and Training (Open A.I.R.) network.
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    Resilience and risk in the informal economy: a study in the regulation of flooding
    (2015) Shale, Moliehi Thuto; Shearing, Clifford D; Börzel, Tanja
    Small scale business owners living and operating businesses in flood prone informal settlement areas are amongst the most vulnerable groups of society to climate change and associated risks. The state is unable to provide key goods and services in many of these areas of limited statehood. How these business owners respond to flood hazard in areas of limited statehood is of interest to this research. This research explores the governance processes in informal settlement areas in Cape Town, South Africa. A key concern in this study is what widespread informality means for the lived realities of the poor in environmentally vulnerable communities, particularly informal settlement areas. I explore the flood management strategies available in both the formal and informal sectors and how they are used by the small-scale business. Using a mixed method approach, in two informal settlement areas in Cape Town, I draw out and test factors for comparison with a focus on understanding the determinants of small business owners' choice and use of flood management strategy. The main literary contribution that this study makes is to demonstrate the ways in which civil associations in the informal sector built social capital that is then called upon at times of hazard. These civil associations help the business owners monetarily, but they also have inbuilt social capital which members exploit to respond to hazards other than the ones that the associations were created for. This way, small business owners can count on fellow community members in the face of adversity. I explore the ways that social capital is built in these associations, and how members are encouraged to contribute towards it and help others in times of need. This research helps our understanding of regulations outside of the state, and the governance role of non-state actors to respond to multiple hazards. By interrogating this governance issue in informal settlement areas and amongst low-income owners, I contribute to the growing literature on informality in African cities. The research makes an important contribution to research study whose framing of the state is empirically based, and therefore reflects the reality on the ground in many African cities. Much of the literature on governance in African studies had assumed the idea of a Westphalian state and interrogated the state, its functions and interaction the populace under this framing. Consequently, such research is unable to capture the real nature and governance capabilities of the state and raised more questions that it has been able to answer. Further, this framing of the governance role of the state in African cities obscures the role of non-state governance actors in both the formal and informal sectors. To this end, I conducted interviews with a total of 154 small business owners in Joe Slovo informal settlement in Langa township and Victoria Mxenge informal settlement in Philippi township. The interviews elicited information on business owners' exposure to flooding, their response and the factors that influenced their choice to response mechanism. A survey was also conducted to get demographic data of the business owners in the research sites, other key government officials, academic researchers, and representatives of insurance companies in the formal market. Based on this survey data further variables that could influence the choice of flood management strategy were drawn and tested in further interviews. The findings of the research point to the usefulness of nonstate institutions in the response to flooding in poor communities. The social capital built in to civil associations and its availability to fellow members at times of adversity makes them an adaptive vehicle to respond to numerous other hazards other than the ones that they are intended for.
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    Understanding the Contemporary Character of Braamfontein Johannesburg: Towards a renewed understanding of urban renewal in cities in the South
    (2019) Katz, Ivanna; Selmeczi, Anna
    Work on urban renewal internationally focuses on a vast range of topics, including gentrification, increased criminalization of poverty, rent-seeking behaviour, and neoliberal urbanism. These arguments tend to centre the interests and actions of certain actors, prioritize certain forces (such as economic ones), and thus tend to predict a particular set of outcomes. In adopting a southern urbanist epistemology, and Jennifer Robinson’s reimagined comparativism through a reconceptualized 'case’, this research shows how predominant assumptions regarding the drivers and outcomes (both social and physical) of urban renewal do not necessarily apply in the case of Braamfontein, an instance of urban renewal in Johannesburg, a post-apartheid city in the south. The findings examined here include policy narratives and empirical referents to culture-led strategies of urban renewal and ways in which they speak less to market-orientated objectives, and more to socio-political ones; how the findings in Braamfontein speak to literature on gentrification, studentification, and youthification, showing that urban renewal and gentrification are not the same processes, and that studentification does not necessarily lead to youthification or gentrification; how attempts to suppress informal trade have led to the proliferation of iterant strategies on the part of hawkers, and have in turn led to enhanced relationships between informal traders and the formal economy; and, finally, how the presence of communities self-identifying as foreign or gay are shown to be driven by forces other than those that the literature typically predicts.