The right to the city in an era of modernization: Exploring Lagos’ restrictive informal transportation policy through a political settlements lens

The study focusses on the dynamics of power relations influencing informal economic policies at the city level, utilising the political settlements theory to do so. The case study rests on the understanding of political settlements as an ongoing, conflict-ending agreement among powerful groups. Key actors in this study are policy-makers, and operators of okada motorcycles (a very popular informal transportation option) in Lagos, Nigeria’s economic capital. The relationship between these actors intricately lies between tensions and opportunities. Operators of okada motorcycles provide much needed flexible transportation options in a city bedevilled by long hours of traffic congestion and unmotorable, physically hard to reach communities. The demand for okada services in Lagos is therefore sustained by residents themselves, who often ignore the precarious meandering of its operators on busy highways. On the other hand, policy makers allude to this inherent lack of safety and additionally, security risks to maintain a policy of restriction and then, total ban on operators much to outcry from operators and the public. As okada-riders tend to be from a specific ethnic, migrant group, scholars have previously studied the issues from the lens of migration and the rights to the city, while the Lagos State Government has been accused of perpetuating a modernisation agenda at the expense of the informal sector operators. The government’s past actions in ignoring its own restrictive policies close to election periods also lends credence for understanding the political settlement processes at play in this sector. The political settlements framework therefore presents a strong analytical opportunity to understand the negotiations, trade-offs and power shifting that underscore inclusive policy for the informal transportation sector in Lagos. It recognises the power wielded by the policy actors as elected officials and by the okada riders as powerful service operators whose options supplants the formal transportation sector for many residents. This study traces these processes through media analysis, interviews and surveys with both actors, seeking to present a balance between the realities of governing a mega city, the rights of migrants to legitimately seek employment in the city and the responsibility of both government and people to make their city work for all. Although focussed on the Lagos informal sector, the study provides pathways for inclusive policy in other, similar contexts

On-farm anaerobic digestion uptake barriers and required incentives: A case study of the UK East Midlands region

On-farm anaerobic digestion (AD) can deliver renewable energy, improved management of farm wastes and the production of fertilizer, offering cost-savings, environmental improvements and potentially also revenue generation. The research reported here provides an in-depth exploration, in the UK's East Midlands region, of the factors behind the limited uptake of on-farm AD, compared with other on-farm renewable energy sources, and what stakeholders would like to see to change this. Data collection has been undertaken in three stages – a questionnaire sent to farmers, 18 interviews with stakeholders from the industry and policy sides of the AD debate, and a stakeholder workshop. The many barriers identified were grouped into political & institutional, AD awareness, and economic & technical. A range of incentives and policy responses are identified to increase on-farm AD uptake, notably coordinated information gathering and dissemination, streamlined planning processes, improved access to finance, and stable policies

Conflicting rationalities and okada riding business in Lagos: Lessons for an inclusive policy framework

Okada riding (motorcycle taxi) business provides a prominent commuter service in Lagos. It is, however, an activity that has been subject to restrictions and outright bans in recent years. This paper focuses on differences in perspectives among city stakeholders towards the government’s restrictions on okada and their enforcement. These differences are profound, with the government imposing outright bans in more and more parts of Lagos while citizens continue to use okada. Thus, ‘conflicting rationalities’ around the bans and their disregard are inevitable, given the diversity of city stakeholders, from okada riders and their unions, the government imposing bans, state agents enforcing bans, and categories of citizens (the elites, the working poor, and everyone in between), with differing views about the merits of the bans and the logics underlying them. This conflict is seen with okada riders, on the one hand, trying to earn a living through the provision of commuter services (claiming the right to the city), with state agents and the elites trying to sanitise the city and eliminate crimes and associated menace in the city. This has turned out to be a conflict between survival, the right to the city, effective governance, and modernisation, which has resulted in protests, arrests, the seizure and destruction of motorbikes, court cases against the bans, etc. Viewing these conflicts through the lens of rational choice theory, we argue that the city authority’s decision to restrict okada business, and reactions to the ban, are informed by an analysis of associated risks and rewards. We collected rich data via multiple and unique methods between Sept 2021 and August 2022: 6 focus-group interviews conducted with stakeholders (i.e., government ministries, informal economy workers and their representatives, and FIWON); a follow-up workshop with stakeholders; and an in-depth survey conducted in all 20 Local Government Areas of Lagos State, yielding 1736 responses from citizens. Our findings show that the thoughts and experiences of the government and okada riders on the business are at variance; and that stakeholder engagement in the formulation of the law that restricted okada business was inadequate and ineffective. Our results provide important insights into the consequences and gaps arising from conflicting rationalities in the management of the okada riding business in Lagos. This offers valuable lessons for developing an inclusive policy framework

Investigating the process of sustainable publicness in the solar energy market: A case study of Nigeria

This study investigates the process of designing and setting-up a new market for solar energy in Nigeria and its expected sustainable values, such as low costs for end-users and positive climate change impact. Empirics come from a case-study conducted in Nigeria. Taking inspiration from the work of Deleuze and Guattari, we analyse the ways in which each key component of the new market form an assemblage; and how each assemblage has potentials to influence performance metrics of the new market. Further, we examine how using solar energy in households improves sustainability for climate change at macro organisational level. Findings show factors that enable or hinder public authorities and market actors from institutionalising the solar energy market throughout the whole country and what can be done to reach there

Sugar trade and the role of historical colonial linkages

Past colonialism has shaped current policies and patterns relating to sugar trade. To examine the effects of historical colonial linkages on sugar trade, the gravity model is estimated for a panel of raw sugar imports into 25 OECD countries from the rest of the world over the 1961-2016 period. Colonial linkages in a North-South direction increase sugar trade, but colonial linkages in a North-North direction decrease it. Several distinct North-South colonial channels are identified. Sugar trade is enhanced by the major empire shipping routes, rail infrastructure, cultural proximity and preferential market access

Policy capacity for the transition to a biofuels economy: a comparative study of the EU and USA

The scale of the ambition to decouple emissions growth from energy consumption in the economy runs counter to several decades of debates and literatures on the limits of government. Transport biofuels are an early and influential case of the policy capacity challenge in the transition to low-carbon economies. The case stands analytically for the policy-maker’s dilemma of maintaining longer term policy goals as credible commitments, even though considerable flexibility and adaptability in policy-making is required to reach those far horizon goals in conditions of high technological and market uncertainty. In such terms, this paper compares US and EU biofuels policy processes, revealing an intertemporal choice which tests the capacity to account for the future benefits of a low carbon future in current policy processes; because if the pathway to their achievement is uncertain and politically contested in the implementation phase, then those future benefits may be heavily discounted, shortening policy-maker horizons and rendering the overall transition process politically vulnerable

You say ‘self-interest’ is buried, but I say you can’t ignore its ghost – evidence from Lagos, Nigeria study

I was invited by the Menard Family George Washington Forum to participate in the 'Capitalism and Informality' conference. This is one of two papers presented at the conference.Self-interest, an individual’s behaviours that consciously or unconsciously, has underpinned capitalist economic thinking for several centuries. From the time of Adam Smith and the notion of the invisible hand, reflections on the self over community, or society, are predicated on self-interest ultimately generating community benefit. The reality for many societies, however, is that where there are power imbalances, inequalities can not only arise, but expand over time. This is seen in countries globally, but these inequalities are particularly prevalent in the countries of the Global South. This, in turn, has had a profound impact on the nature of economic activity in these countries, where a significant proportion, even a majority, of activity is informal in nature. Inequality has led to social tensions alongside the prevalence of informality, that have had significant impacts on economic, political and social stability in the many countries of the Global South so affected. One such country is Nigeria. Recently, studies have started to reflect on how indigenous African philosophies can be drawn upon as a basis for healing the divisions in Nigerian society, such as Ubuntu (Woermann and Sanni, 2020; Eke and Onwuatuegwu, 2021) and Harambeeism (Irabor and Onwudinjo, 2021). Reflecting on these divisions from an economic perspective, reflecting especially on the institutional context of economic policies and activity, a further source of conflict can be identified. There is evidence of a gap between the formal institutions of government policies that are seeking to shape economic activity in the country, and the informal institutions of beliefs, values, cultures, histories, that are so deeply instilled in people that their behaviours represent and active fight against the neoliberal tendencies of many formal economic policies. In this paper, we draw on extensive fieldwork conducted in Lagos, Nigeria, to explore citizens’ attitudes towards informal traders, as manifest through the motivations that are driving their purchasing decisions. The evidence demonstrates that whilst there are self-interested concerns driving these behaviours, we also find clear evidence that the informal institutions underpinning citizens’ worldview also shapes their interactions with, and decisions to purchase from, informal street hawkers. Indeed, these forces are so strong that they are influencing behaviour despite the government criminalising both street hawking and buying from hawkers. In this way, we offer tentative evidence that whatever the challenges are that are facing Nigerians, there is a suggestion that the kind of values expounded by Ubuntu, and by Harambee, can be found in the ways people live their lives in the hustle and bustle of Lagos

On-Farm Anaerobic Digestion: a dissection of policy barriers to uptake

In recent years, the multifunctionality of farming activities and diversification of on-farm income sources have increasingly included the generation of renewable energy. The uptake of on-farm anaerobic digestion, however, continues to lag behind other renewable energy sources, notably wind and solar. The purpose of this paper is to provide an in-depth analysis of the policy barriers that might explain this relative absence of anaerobic digestion from UK farming. This is doubly important, given that anaerobic digestion is not only a potential source of renewable energy, but also a means of waste management within certain farming systems. The analysis draws on a mixed-methods research project, with data from 153 responses to a questionnaire sent to farmers in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire in March 2016; 18 in-depth interviews with stakeholders in the anaerobic digestion sector; and a workshop that brought together stakeholders in a round-table discussion. The qualitative data are coded and then analysed utilising a model of policy analysis that distinguishes between three levels of policy means and policy ends. The findings of this analysis provide important insights into the challenges of devising a policy that can effectively promote on-farm anaerobic digestion