INFORMAL SECTOR EMPLOYMENT AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO RURAL DEVELOPMENT: THE CASE OF ELDORET MUNICIPALITY IN KENYA
ABSTRACT As formal jobs get more and more scarce while the number of potential workers continues to increase, the informal sector is increasingly becoming an important employer throughout Kenya. The crucial role the informal sector plays in the Kenyan economy was given formal recognition by the Government of Kenya in 1988 with the creation of the Ministry of Technical Training and Applied Technology to regulate this sector. However, despite this official recognition, very little has been done by the government to improve the welfare and working conditions of those involved in this sector. This paper offers a case study of the informal sector in Eldoret Manucipality in Kenya. In Eldoret this sector is vibrant and can be found in the busiest places of the Central Business District as well as in high density residential areas. The results of this study indicate a gendered division of the sector into two parts: namely, the production sector dominated by men and the service sector dominated by women. The centr...
Women Stay on the Farm No More: Changing Patterns of Rural–Urban Migration in Sub-Saharan Africa
Women could be said to be ‘the second sex in town’ in colonial Africa in that men predominated in the urban centres spawned by the political economy of colonialism. An explanation has to consider both employment and family separation. Although colonial governments, missions, commercial firms, and mines recruited men, it is not clear to what extent this was a matter of preference on the part of the major employers rather than the response of peasant households. Not at issue are the reasons for the latter's integration into the cash economy and the rôle of coercion, whether in the form of forced labour or indirectly through the imposition of tax. But what considerations were borne in mind when households deliberated about which of their members to dispatch? Whatever the part played by both employers and suppliers in determining the composition of the labour supply – and this so far totally neglected topic demands research – the result was that in many, if not all, African colonies, almost as a rule, domestic servants, secretaries, and nurses were male.
Ibo Land Tenure
Opening Paragraph The Ibo-speaking people of Eastern Nigeria can be regarded as a single culture area which may provisionally be subdivided into five main divisions: Northern or Onitsha, Southern or Owerri, Western or Ika, Eastern or Cross River, and North-eastern or Abakaliki. The first two divisions, whose boundaries correspond very roughly to those of the Administrative Provinces of Onitsha and Owerri, contain the bulk of the population; the Western occupies the Niger riverain region and the forest country beyond, and their culture has been influenced by that of the Edospeaking tribes farther west, and by Benin; the Cross River Ibo are another marginal group whose affinities with the ‘Semi-Bantu’-speaking tribes on the eastern bank of that river have yet to be studied; while the North-eastern Ibo are a specialized group that has developed, in comparative isolation, a culture and a social structure better adapted to the savannah country in which they live. The remarks which follow refer mainly to the Northern, Southern, and Cross River Ibo; the North-eastern Ibo system differs in many important respects; the Western has not been studied. The terms used in defining Ibo social groupings have been explained in Africa, vol. xix, No. 2, p. 151, and in places where this may cause confusion the ‘official’ or alternative term is given in brackets. Résumé SYSTÈME FONCIER DES IBO L'unité de tenure de la terre, dans la société iboenne, est constituée par plusieurs villages groupés dans une seule communauté autonome locale. Trois étapes peuvent être distinguées dans l'histoire du développement de ces groupes: (a) la colonisation; (b) la consolidation; (c) la désintégration et la réorganisation. Les terres appartenant au groupe de villages sont classées comme terrains pour habitations et terrains agricoles; l'allocation des parcelles et l'emploi et le transfert des terrains sont contrôlés par la communauté. Autrefois, très peu de restrictions étaient imposées sur le transfert des terrains, soit entre les membres de la communauté, soit aux étrangers, mais l'augmentation de la population et la pénurie de terrains, surtout de terrains agricoles, qui en a résultée, ont abouti, dans beaucoup de régions, à une interdiction de transferts. Diverses méthodes de céder, affermer et nantir des terrains sont décrites. Le système fonder parmi les Ibo est fondé sur certains principes qui sont tenus fermement, et même passionnément; (a) la terre appartient à la communauté; (b) aucun membre de la communauté ne devrait être sans terre; (c) chaque personne devrait avoir une tenure assurée. Le système qui convenait bien aux conditions andennes, est mal approprié aux circonstances actuelles; une répartition inégale de la population s'ensuit, l'amélioration des méthodes de cultivation et la colonisation de nouvelles régions sont empêchées, et, dans certaines régions, les groupes de villages ont été transformés de communautés agricoles à de simples réserves de main-d'œuvre.