The Africa Retail Academy, in partnership with the Lagos Business School (LBS), has unveiled a new programme to equip business leaders with the skills and strategies needed to navigate challenges in Africa’s informal economy.

The programme brought together C-suite executives, directors, and policymakers across FMCG, financial services, retail, and public regulation, and addressed a critical corporate vulnerability concern among formal enterprises: they routinely burn capital in African markets by attempting to force rigid, Westernised business models into informal trade networks.

The initiative aims to professionalise retail operations, improve productivity, and unlock growth opportunities in a sector that accounts for over 60% of economic activity across the continent.

Speaking at the forum held at the LBS in Lagos, the Academic Director of the Africa Retail Academy, Prof. Uchenna Uzo, explained that businesses fail when they treat the informal market as disorganised or impoverished.

Uzo said winning requires cultural intelligence, adaptive agent networks, and an understanding that trust, not technology, is the primary currency of trade.

Across Africa, the informal economy accounts for over 90% of retail transactions. In Nigeria alone, it represents 48% of national output and 93% of employment. The convening established that informality is not a marginal sector waiting to be formalised, but the fundamental operating environment of African commerce.

Participants at the training reinforced that trust is the foundation of success in informal markets, requiring businesses to build credibility with market leaders, trade associations and community gatekeepers before seeking to scale.

They also concluded that while governance, customer experience and compliance should be standardised, the speed, flexibility and relationship-driven nature of informal trade must be preserved. Drawing on the Moniepoint case study, the participants also examined how effective route-to-market strategies combine trusted local relationships with digital capabilities, and why products and pricing must be designed around the realities of informal markets through co-creation, flexible pricing and customer-centric solutions.

Other topics explored include the architecture of informal markets, stakeholder mapping, negotiation and cultural intelligence, route-to-market strategy, distribution design, agent networks, financial inclusion, pricing, trust-building, and the standardisation of informal business practices.

The practical case studies from SLOT Systems and Moniepoint, the participants said, demonstrated how organisations can scale successfully by designing around local realities rather than imposing formal-market assumptions.