Budgeting and the Informal Economy in Accra, Ghana

About 86 per cent of Ghanaian workers work in the informal economy but together they earn only 40 per cent of national income. This is because many informal jobs are low paid and there is little job security.

This brief looks at whether and how the budget of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly provides for informal economy workers and in particular for traders. It presents information sourced from official documents, other research, interviews with AMA officials, and focus groups discussion and interviews with traders and their leaders in many of the city’s markets.