In this highly original work, Mary Njeri Kinyanjui explores the trajectory of women's movement from the margins of urbanization into the centres of business activities in Nairobi and its accompanying implications for urban planning. While women in much of Africa have struggled to gain urban citizenship and continue to be weighed down by poor education, low income and confinement to domestic responsibilities due to patriarchic norms, a new form of urban dynamism - partly informed by the informal economy - is now enabling them to manage poverty, create jobs and link to the circuits of capital and labour. Relying on social ties, reciprocity, sharing and collaboration, women's informal 'solidarity entrepreneurialism' is taking them away from the margins of business activity and catapulting them into the centre. Bringing together key issues of gender, economic informality and urban planning in Africa, Kinyanjui demonstrates that women have become a critical factor in the making of a postcolonial city.

The persistence of indigenous African markets in the context of a hostile or neglectful business and policy environment makes them worthy of analysis. An investigation of Afrocentric business ethics is long overdue. Attempting to understand the actions and efforts of informal traders and artisans from their own points of view, and analysing how they organise and get by, allows for viable approaches to be identified to integrate them into global urban models and cultures.

Using the utu-ubuntu model to understand the activities of traders and artisans in Nairobi’s markets, this book explores how, despite being consistently excluded and disadvantaged, they shape urban spaces in and around the city, and contribute to its development as a whole. With immense resilience, and without discarding their own socio-cultural or economic values, informal traders and artisans have created a territorial complex that can be described as the African metropolis.

African Markets and the Utu-buntu Business Model sheds light on the ethics and values that underpin the work of traders and artisans in Nairobi, as well as their resilience and positive impact on urbanisation. This book makes an important contribution to the discourse on urban economics and planning in African cities.

This book makes the case for informal sector institutions in development theory. Through practical examples and interviews conducted in Kenya, the author captures how ordinary people organize themselves to meet daily economic and development challenges. The author traces how ordinary people " (wananchi) " use non- mainstream mechanisms in the form " vyama " (social groups) to enable individual, group and community development. The book offers insights into the evolution of" vyama " (institutions of hope) and the role these institutions continue to play in realizing economic growth: wealth creation and distribution; investments, social protection; and general community development.

The work shows how, despite historical disruptions, modernization and neo-liberal policies, ordinary people creatively borrow from tradition. In the process, they use collective mechanisms for resource mobilization, investment, risk-sharing and shared gains for the common good. The author offers pointers into the future and how the " chama " concept can become mainstream in a people's economic development.

What others say

"The analysis is rigorous. It is highly original, emotive, and an excellent piece of work. It makes a major contribution to our knowledge of the proto-proletariat and the informal sector in the developing world. - How the author beautifully weaves anecdotes from classic al African novels into her analysis to reinforce her argument makes this work distinctive and unique."" - Professor MBK Darkoh, University of Botswana "

"This book is based on real life cases in an area that most scholars have not ventured into. It is a major addition of new findings in the body of knowledge. The presentation is clear, understandable and would appeal to most readers." " -Paul Kamau, PhD, Senior Research Fellow, University of Nairobi "

"The strength of this book is the way it has managed to present the lives of the ordinary people as not hopeless, but rather the base where future development for Africa could be emerging. The book starts from the grassroots and the development actions and innovations taking place there based on the needs as experienced by the ordinary people, rather than the technical fixes of development experts that follow the books rather than the actual needs of the people being developed."" - Professor Beth Maina Ahlberg, PhD, Professor of International Health, Uppsala University "

"This book demonstrates how ordinary citizens have discovered the power in tapping into social relations and are proactively solving their own socio-political and economic challenges. It calls for the incorporation of the ordinary citizen in development planning with a view of enabling them to receive value from and add value to the globalisation and integration process. For anyone who is interested to see Africa play an important role in the global agenda, this is not a book to be ignored."" -- Josephat Juma, Managing Editor, The African Executive magazine. "