Paper short abstract:

Africa is urbanising faster than any other part in the developing world. Informality has emerged as an inseparable feature of this urbanization process. This paper explores the dynamics of governments’ policy response to urban informality and migrants’ roles in shaping its outcomes on the ground.

Paper long abstract:

Africa is urbanising faster than any other part in the developing world. Informality has emerged as an inseparable feature of this urbanization process, particularly, in sub-Saharan Africa. Existing studies have shown that government responses to urban informality can be viewed along a continuum of actions from sustained and violent repressions and evictions to supportive and inclusive policies. However, the majority of these studies on responses to urban informality have not only, remained technical in approach but largely relied heavily on theoretical perspectives from international political economy which ignores political dimensions among local actors and the everyday rituals of informality. We adopt a qualitative case study research approach- based on in-depth interviews and key informants, and document analyses to explore the dynamics of governments’ policy responses, particularly the way policing and politicization of urban informality plays out in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) and Kampala (Uganda) as case studies. Simultaneously we also delve into the contradictory agencies of the informal actors-who are either resisting, collaborating, submitting, or actively participating in their own exclusion/ inclusion processes. The analysis departs from the conventional approach that treats the State as a cohesive/unitary repressive force by approaching it as deeply divided on the ways of governing informality. The study revealed that the everyday interactions among different tiers of government, both between the national and city government as well as within the city, are crucial to understanding how, partly, governance of urban informality influences its resilience and vulnerability.