SME owner/managers, regardless of nationality, are well-educated: all of the respondents to the survey had at least secondary education, and a majority of the expatriates had higher education. Education emerges as an important determinant of "formality": it is the enterprises with the more educated owners/managers that are registered as corporations or ULLEs, pay the full range of taxes, and in turn benefit from bank financing and technical assistance.

SMEs which are registered as sole proprietorships (or unregistered) are much more likely to be owned by Ivoirian and other African nationals. Their owners are less educated, they tend to employ fewer people, they rely much more on apprentices, and they seldom receive technical assistance or Bank financing. It is particularly ironic that there is such a clear relationship between education and technical assistance: the needier the SMEs (because of the low level of education of their principals), the less likely they are to be the recipients of technical assistance.

The larger, more formal SMEs seem to be facing considerable difficulties and, in many cases, their very existence will be threatened by the adjustment process. On the other hand, the smaller, indigenously owned/managed SMEs are accustomed to facing obstacles and to having their growth stunted; they are bound to be much more resilient and could more easily respond to a less rigid and distorted environment.

Microenterprises. An extensive recent survey' provides reliable, basic information on urban and peri-urban microenterprises. This survey depicts a complex and varied sector (see table 3) which ranges from embryonic SMEs in the manufacturing sector (22% of the enterprises) and industrial support services (20% are repair workshops of ali kinds) to the more stereotypical vendors (29% of the enterprises).

There are clear specializations by gender, with females much more likely to be involved in vending and food-related activities, and males much more likely to be involved in services and in those manufacturing activities where sales most often take place at the point of production. For the majority of microentrepreneurs (male and female alike, although by a lower margin for the latter), their activity constitute the main source of household income.

- The large majority of microenterprises are not formally registered which is probably related to the low level of education of their owners (table 4). Only 14% of the microentrepreneurs have a secondary education, while 48% declared themselves to be illiterate. Illiteracy is more common among females (53%) than among males (46%), and among non-Ivoirians (52%) than among Ivoirians (44%). ' Gama Centre, 1988. Mssrs. Guibony Sinsin and Zilma Badiel were instrumental in gathering and processing this unique data source. The survey systematically sampled several urban and periurban areas in Abidjan and its vicinity and obtained information on 1,588 microentrepreneurs involved in _55_ different types of activities. We have classified these _55_ activities into five sub-sectors: commerce; other services (ranging from typists to hairdressers); bars and restaurants; repair workshops; food processing; and other manufacturing.

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