  The relic abundance and the scalar cross-section off nucleon for light
neutralinos (of mass below about 45 GeV) are evaluated in an effective MSSM
model without GUT-inspired relations among gaugino masses. It is shown that
these neutralinos may provide a sizeable contribution to the matter density in
the Universe and produce measurable effects in WIMP direct detection
experiments. These properties are elucidated in terms of simple analytical
arguments.
