Paper short abstract:

Informality is growing in the global south as a response to economic crises. The infrastructure development agenda of global south governments and the urban elites in recent times, however, is aimed at removing informality without the necessary provisions.

Paper long abstract:

The increasing quest for modernity among African states has caused several changes in urban centres of African countries. The notion that infrastructure development in the bane of economic growth and development has resulted in the removal of a certain class of people referred to as the informal sector of cities in making way for infrastructure across sub-Saharan Africa. The Kejetia/Central Market Redevelopment Project is one such project.

The paper adopts the case study research approach in exploring the significance of these urban renewal projects to the informal workers in urban centres. Using the purposive and snowballing non-random sampling method, a total of 52 informal workers of the Kejetia/Central market were intensively interviewed together with 4 heads of formal institutions and 5 key informants serving as authority figures on the project construction.

The finding of this paper is that, contrary to the projections by the government and urban elites, the urban renewal projects have very little significance to the economic empowerment and growth of the economic activities of the informal sector.