System D
We are going to narrow down to a row of parked okadas< motorcycle taxies>.
< Quick history lesson> Okadas appeared in the late 1980s, during an economic downturn that led to deterioration in the intra-city transport system in Nigeria. Jobless youth began to use motorcycles to earn money by transporting passengers on narrow or poorly maintained roads to faraway cities and villages. Soon these motorcycle taxis became an important public service provided by many enterprising and brave locals not only in Nigeria but also Serria Leone, Burkina Faso, Liberia and Togo.
What is it like to ride an okada ? Well, Okada riders rely entirely on the existence of crevices in the flow of traffic; hence you can get to where you want to go – remember to eat light though because it can feel like a ride on a tora-tora with a mind of its own.
Our protagonist is the man on the okada marked “Street Hawke”. Yusuf, a farm boy from Bauchi came to Lagos in search for employment and opportunity. He spent a year with without employment and then another year as a street vendor selling fast food - watching and learning from the people and streets - before he bought his first okada.
Like many others Yusuf rides through week with half a day off on Friday the day of the Muslim Sabbath and his effort earn him one thousand naira or 5 USD. After many painful leaps and sways through the streets to build a repute, Yusuf who used to make the average of a thousand naira now makes eight thousand naira from his own riding and from okada’s he has rented out.
Sounds easy doesn’t it? – Well – It isn’t exactly easy. To add context, Lagos is an expensive city to live in – the Mercer survey of 2014 lists Lagos at the 25th most expensive position on a list of countries. < More context - A kilogram of rice can cost approximately 500 Naira!>
Another quick story - For those who just woke up - We are still in Nigeria!
David is not an inventor or an engineer and his insights into his country’s electrical problems had nothing to do with fancy photovoltaics or turbines to harness the harmattan or any other alternative sources of energy.
Instead, 7,000 miles from home, using a language he could hardly speak, he did what traders have always done: made a deal. He contracted with a Chinese firm near Guangzhou to produce small diesel-powered generators under his uncle’s brand name, Aakoo, and shipped them home to Nigeria, where power is often scarce. David’s deal, struck four years ago, was not massive — but it made a solid profit and put him on a strong footing for success as a transnational merchant. Like almost all the transactions between Nigerian traders and Chinese manufacturers, it was also sub rosa: under the radar, outside of the view or control of government, part of the unheralded alternative economic universe of “System D”.*
I should probably elaborate on “System D” now
System débrouillard or System “D” – the verb se débrouiller translates as ‘to make do’, to manage, especially in an adverse situation.
Interestingly at a time when all we look at are large scale enterprises and debate the size of the formal/orgnaised sector, we miss this little footnote — that excludes two-thirds of the workers in the world. These workers are the part of System D, the informal economy, which employs 1.8 billion people.
What is worth? A report published in 2003 by Fredrich Schneider, the chair of the economics department at Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria estimates the GDP of System D to be close to 10 trillion dollars globally.
A 2009 study by Deutsche Bank, suggested that people in the European countries with the largest portions of their economies that were unlicensed and unregulated — in other words, citizens of the countries with the most robust System D and also goes on record to say they fared better in the economic meltdown of 2008 than folks living in centrally planned and tightly regulated nations! <I’m still looking for this report and the data – I would take this with a ‘pinch of salt’>
What about India? – Well, non-agricultural employment is broadly classified as the “informal sector “and the sub-sectors that account for a dominant share of informal sector employment are manufacturing, construction and trade (wholesale and retail). They accounted for 76 per cent and 68 per cent respectively
Reading about System D got me thinking –
1.8 billion people manage this push and shove no ‘change management plan’ they eventually find direction and some of even do much better than just survive.
Yet some of us rely so much on the familiar only to find that the grand designs we build and rely on are replaceable and sometimes the least likely candidates will take their place. We won’t always know who we will partner with and where these partnerships take us. If is any consolation we know this will change too!
References ( For Those who want to know more ): Stealth of Nations; Robert Neuwrith
http://web.mit.edu/17.577/www/week11.html
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-adaptation-2002
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tv/entries/305133fd-7ddb-3fac-8c18-a08fe0372729
http://standardtimespress.org/?p=2645
To the ones who want to experiment – Here is someone who sells Yamaha okadas http://www.jhplc.com/products/yamaha/yamaha-bikes.php
http://pakacademicsearch.com/pdf-files/art/448/231-239%20Vol%202,%20No%206%20(2012).pdf
http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/city_result.jsp?country=Nigeria&city=Lagos
http://www.gdrc.org/informal/ilo-decentwork.pdf
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Chandrasekhar/indias-informal-economy/article6375902.ece
Comments
Post a Comment