IN most African countries, the formal education system has not succeeded in creating conditions for knowledge to flow between different classes of economic actors and between the formal and informal economies. Consequently, the gap between formal and informal systems continues to widen as evidenced by how the informal economy is fast becoming a secondary underground ecosystem whose systems cannot be easily understood by academics, policy-makers and banks.
Left to its own devices for decades, the secondary economy has developed its self-contained systems anchored on mass markets and indigenous commercial best practices.
The power of a common language and shared perceptions of progress
Closing the gap between formal and informal economies requires policy-makers to invest in carefully identifying knowledge supply chain nodes and the intricate ways through which information and knowledge move together with commodities in mass markets. Supply chains in the secondary economy have become good at responding to shocks such as droughts and pandemics.
Governments speak in terms of administrative districts or counties, politicians speak in terms of wards and constituencies, but the secondary economy speaks in terms of production zones, from which supply chains flow to consumption zones.
Without a common language and shared perceptions of progress between policy-makers and actors in the secondary economy, it is difficult to promote business-oriented and nutrition-sensitive approaches for rural development. For instance, a business approach to agricultural development requires extension officers to work as investment advisors, building on the knowledge they have gained over the years about the farming communities in which they have worked.
It does not help to continue preaching the same extension message when farmers have mastered production skills and practices. Changing the roles of agricultural extension officers should see them identifying missing skills in their communities and mobilising other forms of expertise such as nutrition, sociology, engineering and many others, now badly required for holistic rural development.
Importance of dismantling administrative structures that sideline the majority
- Optimising firm’s profitability through value chain analysis
- Supplier rationalisation strategy procurement’s best-kept secret
- The value of enhancing knowledge flow between formal and informal economies
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Knowledge flow continues to be impeded by administrative structures that African governments have adopted from their colonial masters. For instance, despite the rural population comprising the majority of consumers and producers, urban populations are prioritised in terms of support.
Why should a province have one medical doctor when a city has several doctors, yet the province has a bigger population? Enhancing knowledge flow will enable African governments to dismantle administrative structures that sideline the majority. Nutritionists, statisticians, engineers and other professionals should be found at the rural community level. Nutrition messages should not be left to clinics that are more about treating diseases than promoting health and wellness.
Government procurement processes should be democratised to improve knowledge flow between rural and urban areas. For instance, how formal tenders are being administered is an example of how colonial instruments have undermined African development and knowledge flow. The assumption is that registered companies are the only ones able to deliver, yet that may not be correct. What is the rationale of putting an advertisement on building goat pens in a newspaper that circulates in the city when people best skilled to build goat pens are found in rural areas where newspapers are not found?
This is how rural artisans, most of whom may not have company profiles, are excluded from applying their knowledge to economic development.
Instead of outsourcing the development of extension policies to consultants, governments can easily conduct a down-to-earth needs assessment of services, starting from the market and going backwards to production.
Given their presence in communities for a long time, extension officers should switch from providing generic extension advice to facilitating knowledge flow by collecting and packaging information from a wide range of farming households. That role can include conducting frequent needs assessments and processing information into knowledge-based solutions for local communities and policy-makers.
When extension officers are capacitated to become knowledge brokers, they acquire new skills in weaving local research and stories together towards building the intellectual and emotional muscle of farmers so that farmers become more curious about what is happening in diverse markets and other parts of the world.
