Formalising the informal: although South Africa's formal economy has enjoyed a growth boom since the ending of apartheid, paradoxically, poverty levels have also been rising. This, says Tom Nevin, is the result of the marginalisation of the informal sector. He reports on fresh efforts to steer this vast second economy into the mainstream.

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Southern African Regional Poverty Network - International Monetary Fund

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Formalising the informal: although South Africa's formal economy has enjoyed a growth boom since the ending of apartheid, paradoxically, poverty levels have also been rising. This, says Tom Nevin, is the result of the marginalisation of the informal sector. He reports on fresh efforts to steer this vast second economy into the mainstream.

For a while now, a new catchphrase has been doing the rounds in politico-socio-economic circles. Apparently it was conceived in South Africa, has since been adopted into the lingua franca of other southern African countries, and it probably won't be long before it is a continent-wide and then globally applied axiom.

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Although the label is new, the phenomenon has been around ever since the realisation dawned that there i...

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