You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.
- James Allen

A lot of parallels can be drawn between the informal/underground economies of developed countries like the US, UK, Canada, and the economies of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) -- lost tax revenues, distrust of government, lawlessness, crime breeding grounds, low education and work skills, poor quality of commercial services (no warranty nor returns on purchases,) etc.

These characteristics pretty much define the economic twilight zone called the underground economy – regardless of whatever society it occurs in, however, the major difference lies in the proportions of occurrence. According to this article, the US loses about $35 billion tax revenues per annum to the US underground economy ($35 billion ~ GDP of Uganda OR almost 4X the GDP of Rwanda.) A minuscule 0.3% of US GDP, whereas in SSA, the underground economy typically constitutes 50% or more of the gross economic agenda.

The underground economic environment frequently and conveniently, forms the backdrop of crime paperbacks and movies – ruthless goons, mugging, homicide, violence, drugs, prostitution, etc. Or in the case of the above referenced article where the author conveniently builds his case against illegal immigration/immigrants in America entirely on the underground economy cliché. But I am seriously at odds with the author’s implied inference; shutting down illegal immigrants will shut down the underground economy. No sireeee – in good times or bad times, you will always have legal citizens who are criminals, prostitutes, working for under-the-table pay, etc., and neither can anyone attribute the chronic SSA underground economy syndrome to illegal immigration. Hence, I agree more with Venkatesh’s field notes, which gives a more humane face to the phenomenon; shadow economies are sustained in survivalist communities via a complex web of relationships that are not always criminal.

On the one hand, underground economies merely indicate flashpoints in any given socio-cultural specimen where social contracts between governments and the citizens have become very weak or completely broken. Besides arrantly corrupt and kleptocratic leadership, the failure of SSA economies is largely attributable to compromised, or outright lack of economic policies -- if they did exist and were seriously enforced, then kleptocratic leaders would not be above the law – the Mobutus would not pre-occupy themselves with building diamond encrusted mansions while children died of malnutrition, nor would the Bokassas cripple their entire economy in a week's worth of coronation charade – a whole week of naive pretensions at bourgeois aspirations and self-mockery!

Then on the other hand, underground economies are symbolic for lack of trust in the state or government as a result of (real and perceived) government breach of social contracts; hence the freedom-fighter premise: If the government does not provide any amenities to the citizens such as schools, electricity, roads, transport, security, employment, etc., what right does the government then have to demand any kind of recompense, acknowledgement or respect from the people?

Regardless of who’s right or wrong, the burning question is; what ways can we apply information and communication technologies (ICT) to reclaim and stabilize these pirate infested and out of control SSA economies — the most obvious advantage being the automatic doubling and tripling of their individual GDPs?

Let us persistently ask ourselves this question and continually apply our intellects to designing solutions instead of succumbing to dismissive superstition and defeatist maxims; don’t ever catch yourself saying, “everything will work out eventually” – someone or some people have to work hard to make things work out ok! Don’t just throw up your hands and say it’s the signs of the end times because it’s not – if there was going to be an end time, it would have been 300 years ago when African slaves got their feet and penises chopped off, their wives and children ravished routinely or their parents swapped or sold at the masters’ whim.

A Solution Approach

I have always fantasized about SSA governments operating as efficiently as commercial corporate entities – and even if I say “fantasize”, the concept is not totally fruitcake – Singapore already did it – they staked their entire economic future on the now famous PSA project, and next thing you knew they were the biggest port operation  in the world handling about 25% of global container shipments – heck, they were engaged as technical consultants in Rotterdam – yes, the legendary port of Rotterdam< which taught the modern world ocean freight logistics.
So let’s swap out our tech consumer hats for tech producer ones; think about the mobile phone in your hand for instance, examine all the features – volume control, ring tones, text messaging capability, Internet capability, hands free capability, open it up and look at the internal circuitry and imagine the thousands of lines of source code that constitutes the software that drives all the different features of the phone, (Hint: An artificial pacemaker  contains over 20,000 lines of source code.) and what processes it took to get it all together. And if you don’t find the mobile phone concept challenging enough, then consider the mobile phone towers and base stations, the transmitters and switches, the transmission and signaling protocols that all work in concert to enable you make and receive phone calls. (A mobile phone tower costs about $200,000 to build and equip, and the cost of buying and installing an exchange carrier switch with software licensing and support runs into the 7 and 8-figure range.)
I believe in social engineering just like I believe in engineering technologies -- the same engineering principles as obtained in the above mobile telephony concept is equally applicable towards fixing the SSA underground economic scourge in all it’s ramifications. That’s a start.

Please let us hear your thoughts on how to rein in and streamline these aberrant SSA economic segments by leveraging ICTs.