First insights into the relationships between the informal sector, participation in social security systems and civic trust in state institutions were provided at the workshop Surveys on the Informal Economy Kenya & Benin. The subject of the discussions on 4 and 5 April at the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) in Berlin were the results of two household surveys that were jointly developed and implemented in the countries by the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE), the International Labour Organization (ILO) and representatives of the Afrobarometer. Armin von Schiller and Christoph Strupat of the DIE found that only a small part of the population in the informal sector profits from social security programmes and that the trust in state institutions is not strongly pronounced. A possible relationship between both fields will be empirically analysed in future research. In addition, the results were discussed in light of planned surveys in Zambia and Senegal in 2019.
