The staff size of urban informal firms varies widely, but most of the firms are staffed by only the owner. Appendix A, figure A.2 illustrates the distribution of informal firms by staff size. It shows that 82 percent of entrepreneurs in the informal sector are staffed by one person. Whereas 11 percent of informal firms are staffed by two people, only around 7 percent have from two to five employees.<sup>4</sup> The distribution of the staff size of informal firms by gender shows that 87 percent of firms owned by women are staffed by one person while this is the case for 72 percent of firms owned by men (appendix A, figure A.3).

Approximately 65 percent of informal firms are active in the agroindustry and food trade, retail trade, and repair services. The breakdown among these branches indicates that 38 percent of entrepreneurs operate in the agroindustry and food trade, while 26 percent have retail shops and repair services. The manufacturing branch represents a minority, with 10 percent of all informal firms. The wholesale, construction, and mining branches each represents less than 2 percent of informal firms (appendix A, table A.2).

About 85 percent of entrepreneurs in the informal sector work from a fixed place of business, whereas 15 percent do not. However, the locations of the fixed places of business often do not meet basic requirements in a way that sustains business growth. Informal entrepreneurs without a fixed workplace tend to be mobile. Home is the most common workplace among entrepreneurs who work from a fixed place. However, 21.7 percent of informal entrepreneurs who work from their homes do not have the appropriate equipment (appendix A, figure A.4).

The majority of informal firms lack access to basic infrastructure such as water, electricity, and telecommunication. Only 8 percent, 12 percent, and 15 percent of the firms, respectively, have access to water, electricity, and telecommunication. Entrepreneurs in the bottom quintile of the consumption distribution have less access to basic infrastructures mainly because they are less likely to have a fixed workplace compared with entrepreneurs in the top quintile of the consumption distribution (see table 1).

Access to basic infrastructure and a fixed workplace is more constrained among women entrepreneurs than among men entrepreneurs. Whereas 24 percent of men entrepreneurs have access to telecommunication, only 10 percent of women entrepreneurs have such access. Similarly, relative to men entrepreneurs (12 percent), more women entrepreneurs (27 percent) operate from their homes without the appropriate infrastructure (appendix A, figure A.5).

The performance of informal firms is related to their access to capital and the source of their labor. Firms with large amounts of capital generate the most profits. Such firms are disproportionately concentrated among entrepreneurs who exhibit high consumption. Highly

> 4 About 93 percent of informal firms were created by one person. This may indicate a high potential for cooperatives. The mean of paid employees is 0.14 (Table 1), which is below the share (0.205) found in Grimm, Knorringa and Lay (2012) using 1-2-3 survey data for seven West African countries.

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