Nearly 70 percent of the world's population remains trapped in informal settlements. Institutional economist Elena Panaritis made this stark warning at a Lagos screening event.
She unveiled an international documentary titled "70 percent Informals." It exposes the human and economic toll of global informality on developing and developed nations alike.
Panaritis explained that millions lack formal property rights, legal identity, or economic opportunities. Families are forced into slums, child labour, and severe deprivation as a result.
Most people didn't choose informality, she noted. Governments failed to build functioning institutional systems that could have prevented it.
"Informality is touching the world's middle class; it is affecting everybody," Panaritis told reporters. "It is a shame that families live in homes without roofs."
Children get pushed into labour while policymakers struggle to act. They don't identify the root causes driving the crisis.
Governments often focus only on housing shortages, she argued. They miss the deeper institutional failures that prevent citizens from obtaining land titles.
Nigeria faces a deficit of over 28 million housing units. Beyond that sits a widening trust and dignity crisis.
"We don't solve slum problems by evacuating people from slums," Panaritis stated. "Land rights change everything immediately."
She pointed to China's rural development strategy. Investments in roads combined with land rights transformed rural economies.
Many countries are drifting toward systems where only the privileged few own land legally. Millions remain excluded from wealth creation.
"Only 20 percent have title to land rights now," Panaritis warned. "That threatens shared prosperity for everyone."
Peru offers a successful model for reform, she noted. Property rights reforms there cut poverty significantly over time.
Poor citizens transitioned into the middle class through simplified ownership systems. Formal rights of existence made all the difference.
A solution exists called Reality Check Analysis, according to Panaritis. It identifies bottlenecks in institutional infrastructure and removes bureaucratic complexity.
"Ending informality requires deep work," she explained. "Governments must dig into national foundations and understand what created this complexity originally."
Simplifying access to land titles could unlock private investment at scale. Public-private partnerships for low-income housing would follow naturally.
"If you provide titles and property rights in half a day, people can access loans," Panaritis noted. "They can build homes and join the economy."
Lanre Coker, also present at the screening, blamed Nigeria's urban poverty expansion on weak institutional planning. Exclusionary economic systems have worsened the problem dramatically.
