Programme Areas: General Activities*
*Esta página disponible en Español.General Activities
In addition to the activities under its five programmes, WIEGO often undertakes - or collaborates on - more general activities on the informal economy or related policy issues, as follows.
On-Going General Activities
For the past four years, WIEGO has been involved in a series of Exposures and Dialogues with the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India and Cornell University. The basic objective of this initiative is to promote a dialogue between mainstream economists from Cornell University, activists from SEWA, and researchers from the WIEGO network around key neo-classical economic assumptions – and neo-liberal economic policies - which “trouble” ground-level activists and researchers working on issues of employment and labor. The hope is to deepen understanding on both sides of certain economic theories and to avoid the usual stylized debates between radical critics and neo-classical economists.
Other events at the Exposure Dialogue in Delhi included a technical dialogue with SEWA organizers, a field visit to a National Rural Employment Guarantee field site in Gujarat, two policy dialogues in New Delhi (on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and the report of the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector), and a book launch. The book, Membership-Based Organisations of the Poor edited by Marty Chen, Renana Jhabvala, Ravi Kanbur, and Carol Richards, grew out of a conference in January 2005 that followed the first Exposure Dialogue during which participants recognized that membership-based organizations of the poor (MBOPs) are central to achieving equitable growth and poverty reduction.
Participants of the Exposure Dialogue were asked to write personal reflections and technical notes based on what they saw and heard. These were then published electronically:
Compendia of personal and technical notes:
Compendium #1: India (January 04)
Reality and Analysis:
Personal and Technical Reflections on the Working Lives of Six Women. Edited by Martha Chen, Renana Jhabvala, Ravi Kanbur, Nidhi Mirani, Karl Osner.
In collaboration with the German Association for the Promotion of North-South Dialogue, a group of mainstream economists, SEWA activists, and WIEGO researchers had a dialogue about labour market, trade and poverty issues. But they preceded the dialogue with exposures to the realities of the lives of six members of SEWA: living in their homes and working alongside them for two days. The struggles of these women provided the frame for the technical dialogue that followed. The purpose of the Exposure-Dialogue was to start a dialogue between this cross-section of development analysts around key assumptions of neo-classical economics that ‘trouble’ ground-level activists and researchers working on issues of employment and labor.
A follow-up dialogue between the January EDP participants took place in October 2004 in Boston. This second dialogue focused on three policy issues - trade liberalization, technological change, and the proposed Employment Guarantee Act of India – as well as one theoretical issue - the need to rethink labour market theory to reflect the reality of informal labour markets.
Compendium #2: South Africa (March 07)
The Informal Economy in South Africa: Issues, Debates and Policies: Reflections after an Exposure Dialogue Programme. Edited by Imraan Valodia, School of Development Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Compendium #3: India (March 08)
Dialogue, Ahmedabad and Delhi: Compendium of Personal and Technical Notes. Namrata Bali, Kaushik Basu, Haroon Bhorat, Francoise Carre, Martha Chen, Gary Fields, Renana Jhabvala, Ravi Kanbur, Francie Lund, Jeemol Unni, Imraan Valodia.
Compendium #4: Mexico (March 09)
Informal Sector and Social Policy: Compendium of Personal and Techincal Reflections. Cornell-SEWA-WIEGO Exposure and Dialogue Program. Namrata Bali, Kaushik Basu, Suman Bery, Haroon Bhorat, Françoise Carré, Martha Chen, Gary Fields, Ravi Kanbur, Santiago Levy, Francie Lund, Jeemol Unni, Imraan Valodia.
As mentioned above, for the past several years WIEGO has collaborated with SEWA in India and Ravi Kanbur at Cornell University on a continuing dialogue on how the field of economics views employment/informal employment and the links between employment, growth, and poverty reduction. One of the issues that emerged from this dialogue is the role of membership-based organizations of the poor in achieving equitable growth and poverty reduction. This event, organized by SEWA, Cornell University and WIEGO, brought together a group of development analysts and activists to discuss the role of membership-based organizations of the poor in achieving equitable growth and poverty reduction.
The conference was preceded by an exposure to the lives of individual members of SEWA who are themselves involved in the organizing activities of this membership-based organization of the poor. Participants were asked to record their reflections on this exposure. These reflections were then collected and have been published in a compendium. Technical papers were also presented at the conference and will be published in a forthcoming volume.
To read the papers presented at the conference, click here.
To view the conference compendium, click here.
“Labour and Informality: Rethinking Work” ILO–SES and WIEGO Research Project
For the past several years, WIEGO has been involved with the ILO's
InFocus Program on Socio-Economic Security on a collaborative research
project that will result in the publication of an electronic edited
volume examining the changing nature of work, with a special focus
on informal employment, in today’s world. Members of WIEGO
have written nine (out of 16) of the conceptual, empirical, and
methodological papers for this volume and are co-editing the volume.
A cross-cutting theme of the volume is whether, and to what degree,
different categories of informal workers exercise control over their
work, enjoy security of or from their work, and voice in their work.
The volume will be published electronically in 2007.
Past Activities
Progress of the World’s Women 2005: Women, Work, and Poverty by Martha Chen, Joann Vanek, Francie Lund and James Heintz with Renana Jhabvala and Chris Bonner
In September 2004, UNIFEM asked WIEGO to write the 2005 issue of Progress of the World's Women - UNIFEM's biennial flagship publication - on the topic of "Women, Work, and Poverty". Officially launched at the United Nations on September 16, 2005, to coincide with the Millennium Development Summit, the publication focuses on employment, especially informal employment, as a key pathway to reducing poverty and gender inequality. It begins by looking at the totality of women's work, the linkages among the different types of women's work (paid and unpaid, formal and informal), and how these linkages tend to situate women in the more insecure forms of informal employment. It then provides the latest data on the size and composition of the informal economy in different regions and compares official national data on average earnings and poverty risk across different segments of both the informal and formal workers in several countries. It also looks at the costs and benefits of informal work and provides a strategic framework, with promising examples, for organizing informal workers and promoting decent work for informal workers, especially women.
The publication involved inter-agency collaboration, with financial and technical support to UNIFEM from both UNDP and ILO. It also involved active collaboration between the WIEGO team of authors, a panel of external advisors, and the UNIFEM editorial and publication team. And it involved significant collaboration within the WIEGO network. The authors were:
- Marty Chen, Coordinator of WIEGO
- Joann Vanek, Director of WIEGO's Statistics programme
- Francie Lund, Director of WIEGO's Social Protection programme
- James Heintz, Assistant Research Professor at the University
of Massachusetts at Amherst and Research Coordinator of WIEGO's
Statistics programme
- Renana Jhabvala, National Coordinator of SEWA and Member of
WIEGO's Steering Committee
- Chris Bonner, Director of WIEGO's Organization and Representation programme
To read more about The Progress of the World's Women 2005, please click here.
To read The Progress of the World's Women 2005 in its entirety, please click here.
Economic Policy Institute-Global Policy Network Workforce Development Research Project
WIEGO Coordinator Marty Chen and Statistics Programme Director Joann Vanek served as technical advisors to a research project on workforce development coordinated by the Global Policy Network of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. and funded by the Ford Foundation. This project commissioned studies on trends in workforce development, including both the formal and informal workforces, in five countries: Egypt, El Salvador, India, Russia, and South Africa. An initial research workshop, to discuss a common framework, was held in Washington, D.C. in June 2003. A final research workshop, at which all five country studies were presented and discussed, was held in Johannesburg, South Africa in June 2004. Marty participated in both the original and final research workshops; Joann also participated in the final research workshop. A volume of the 5 country studies entitled Good Jobs, Bad Jobs, No Jobs: Labor Markets and Informal Work in Egypt, El Salvador, India, Russia and South Africa, was edited by Tony Avigan, L. Josh Bivens and Sarah Gammage. Marty and Joann co-wrote the concluding chapter of the book, “Informal Employment: Rethinking Workforce Development”.
The book was launched in March 2005 at the Ford Foundation in New York. Marty Chen was one of the speakers at the launch.
For more information on the book, including ordering information, please click here.
To read the concluding chapter by Martha Chen and Joann Vanek as well as the introduction and to view the table of contents, please click here.
Book for the Commonwealth Secretariat
Marty Chen, Joann Vanek, and Marilyn Carr produced a book for the Commonwealth Secretariat’s new gender mainstreaming series on development issues. The book, entitled Mainstreaming Informal Employment and Gender in Poverty Reduction, analyses the link between informal employment, gender and poverty, discusses the changing world of world, highlights promising examples that support informal enterprises and protect informal workers, and provides a strategic framework for formulating policies towards those who are informally employed. This book was officially launched at a meeting of Finance Ministers from Commonwealth Countries in September 2004.
To read Mainstreaming Informal Employment and Gender in Poverty
Reduction in its entirety, please click
here.
Case Studies on the ‘Investment Climate and Informal Enterprises’ for the World Development Report 2005, A Better Investment Climate for Everyone
The World
Development Report 2005 team commissioned WIEGO to write three
case studies on the constraints in the external environment faced
by informal entrepreneurs as background papers for the WDR 2005.
These case studies feature the constraints faced by, respectively,
street traders in six African countries; garment manufacturers and
street traders in Durban, South Africa; and street traders, garment
makers, small farmers, gum collectors, salt farmers, and embroiderers
in Gujarat, India. Former Urban Policies Programme Director Winnie
Mitullah wrote the case study on street trade in Africa; Social
Protection Programme Director Francie Lund and Caroline Skinner
(a colleague at the University of KwaZulu Natal and a key WIEGO
partner) wrote the Durban case study; and WIEGO Coordinator Marty
Chen co-wrote the case study on SEWA/India with WIEGO Steering Committee
member Renana Jhabvala and Reema Nanavaty of SEWA.
To read these background papers, please click on the relevant title:
- "Investment
Climate and Informal Enterprises: A Case Study from Urban and
Rural India " by Martha Chen, Renana Jhabvala and Reema
Nanavaty.
- "The
Investment Climate for the Informal Economy: A Case of Durban
, South Africa" by Francie Lund and Caroline Skinner.
- "Street Vending in African Cities: A Synthesis of Empirical Findings from Kenya, Cote D'Ivoire, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Uganda and South Africa" by Winnie Mitullah.
“Rethinking Labor Market Informalization: Precarious Work, Poverty, and Social Protection” Conference. Cornell University
In October 2002, Cornell University organized a conference on “Rethinking
Labor Market Informalization: Precarious Work, Poverty, and Social
Protection.” WIEGO Coordinator Marty Chen served on the planning
committee for the conference and spoke at the conference. Other
Members of WIEGO who spoke at the conference were Mirai Chatterjee
(SEWA), Lin Lim (ILO), and James Heintz (University of Massachusetts/Amherst).
Public Seminar on the Informal Economy. Ottawa, Canada
In conjunction with its first General Meeting, held in Ottawa, Canada from April 12-14 1999, WIEGO convened a one-day public seminar with the Aga Khan Foundation, Canada. In addition to the 70 persons from 25 countries that participated in the WIEGO General Meeting, participants in the public seminar included 30 persons from a cross-section of Canadian institutions, including universities, NGOs, and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). The public seminar, designed to draw public attention to the working poor (especially women) in the global informal economy, featured presentations on three of the five programme themes of WIEGO: urban policies, global markets, and statistics.
Impact of the Asia Financial Crisis on Women in the Informal Economy
With the support of the World Bank and the ILO, WIEGO along with
partners Homenet Indonesia, Homenet Thailand, Homenet South East
Asia and PATAMABA conducted a set of comparative studies to assess
the impact of the Asian financial crisis in three countries (Philippines,
Indonesia and Thailand); and to help women in these countries address
these impacts. WIEGO helped develop a common conceptual framework
for these studies at a research design workshop held in Bangkok
in January 1999; and provided technical advice on the questionnaire
and sampling procedures used in the surveys in October 1999.
*Esta página disponible en Español.