Programme Areas: Global Markets*

Problem Statement and Programme Objectives:

In the last two decades, many governments have undertaken a set of market-oriented reforms designed to restructure their economies and to integrate them globally. At the same time technological change, especially the spread of new information and communications technologies (ICTs) has accelerated the pace of reform and associated changes, including the reorganisation of production. The poverty and other social outcomes of these economic forces have been, and still are being, hotly debated. But there is growing recognition that they are two-edged forces, bringing both opportunities and constraints and creating both winners and losers. They can offer many opportunities for poverty reduction provided that steps are taken to enable the poor to gain rather than lose from the changes involved. Otherwise, they can leave poorer countries of the world – and the poorer sections of the population within them – worse off than before.

The consequences for the working poor depend on who they are, what they do and where they work. Most countries around the world have experienced profound changes in the nature of work, the employment arrangements of working women and men and the structure of the labour market. The net result has been that the majority of workers in today’s world do not work in what are still widely considered to be ‘standard’ jobs: those with secure contracts, mandated benefits and social protection.

WIEGO Goals

Overall Vision

• Analyzing and systematizing the opportunities and obstacles which enable the linking of increasing numbers of small-scale producer groups in the global South with markets in the global North
  
• Actively supporting the representation of informal workers in the global South in the formulation of ethical/fair trade standards, corporate codes of conduct, and clauses dealing with labour in regional or international trade agreements
  
• On-going collection and analysis of evidence on the impact of trade liberalization on the working poor in the informal economy using a common conceptual framework
  
• Increasing the networks of informal workers, activists, researchers, statisticians, and other technical experts actively working together to help informal workers seize the opportunities and address the risks associated with trade liberalization
  
• To expand the critical mass of countries with statistics on the size, composition, and contribution of the export-linked informal economy
  
• To undertake and encourage research on the regional and global estimates of the contribution of the informal economy to the global economy – by sector and/or product
  
  

Long-Term Goal

• The integration of an informed understanding of the impact of globalization on different categories of informal workers into development economics and development thinking more generally
  

Medium-Term Goals

• The development of a conceptual model with a critical mass of empirical evidence based on sector-specific global value chain analysis on: a) the links between the informal economy and the global economy and b) the impact of trade liberalization on the informal economy
  
• The application of a conceptual model with critical mass of empirical evidence based on the links between the informal employment and labour migration
  
• To build networks of informal workers, activists, researchers, statisticians, and other technical experts actively working together on specific needs and concerns of informal workers and specific policy issues relating to the informal economy
  

Short-Term Goals

• To understand how the informal workforce is affected by and/or inserted into the global economy, and with what consequences;
  
• To help organizations of informal workers better understand and interpret the effects of globalization on their lives and work in order to be able to talk in policy terms about these effects;
  
• To help organizations of informal workers seize new opportunities associated with globalization through building an understanding of the key requirements of marketing strategies and the availability of services of various kinds.
  
• The on-going training of activists and researchers on sector-specific global value chain analysis, using tools developed by WIEGO;
  
• Providing training and information to raise the awareness of informal workers of their labour rights in relation to production for national and export production
  

Given these goals, the Global Markets programme seeks to promote three broad types of activities:

active engagement with informal workers and grassroots producers to develop their understanding of the organizational and product requirements of market access for both national and export markets

initiatives to increase the representative voice of informal workers, especially those in developing countries, in international ethical and fair trade campaigns and networks, the implementation of Corporate codes of conduct, the development of regional trade agreements and the formulation of policy favourable to informal workers and small-scale producers

research studies and data collection on how informal workers, especially women, are inserted into or otherwise affected by the global economy, and with what consequences.

WIEGO Past Activities and Accomplishments

The Global Markets Programme of WIEGO aims to investigate and highlight the impacts - both positive and negative - of global trade and investment policies on the livelihoods of the working poor in the informal economy. More specifically, the Programme focuses on comparative studies in different countries of informal workers in selected global value chains. These studies are designed to analyze global value chains from the perspective of workers/producers at the lowest ends of these chains (many of whom are women) within the context of key features of globalization: notably, the rapid mobility (and associated power) of capital relative to labor and of big companies relative to small and micro units; and the restructuring of employment and production relations through global sub-contracting chains. Comparative multi-country studies were set up involving transnational networks of researchers and activists in three global value chains. These were carried out using tools developed by WIEGO partners with a targeted focus on the workforce in the chains, including home-workers. These are at different stages of completion and include:

• studies of the garment sector in six countries linked to other garment sector studies in another seven countries
  
• studies of selected non-timber forest product value chains in Latin America, South Asia, and Africa
  
• studies of food processing value chains in Asia and Africa.
  

In the future, the Global Markets Programme will continue to pursue global value chain analysis in selected sectors. It will also undertake research on the links between labour migration and informal employment and the impact of changes in tariff barriers on specific groups of informal workers, both as consumers and workers.

Sector-Specific Global Value Chain Analysis

Garments

1. Research Design Workshop:

In April 2002, at a research design workshop co-organized by the North-South Institute and WIEGO, a common conceptual framework for a comparative set of garment studies was developed that includes the following key features:

• worker focus: broadening of sub-sector and GVC analysis to focus on workers – not just entrepreneurs, firms, or industry as a whole – and, more importantly, to look at workers in the lowest links of the chains
  
• homeworker focus: analysis of the ambiguous employment status of homeworkers (i.e. industrial outworkers who work from their homes), including features of both dependence and independence (typically they own the means of production and have to absorb many non-wage costs such as maintaining equipment and paying for utilities)
  
• own account worker focus: analysis of the peculiar features of own account work – often in ambiguous employment status mid-way between dependent workers and self-employed: notably, they are often dependent on single employer, contractor, or supplier
  
• global value chain analysis: attention to the inter-relationship within specific global value chains between immigrant workers in countries in the North and informal workers in the countries from which they migrated.

2. Research Findings Workshop:

In March 2004, the IDS, Sussex and WIEGO organized an international research workshop on the garment sector studies. It was attended by 35 participants from 14 countries. Fourteen country case studies were presented: to enable these to be covered in a short amount of time, two page summaries were prepared in advance and circulated to all participants. This enabled presenters to concentrate on the two cross-cutting themes of the workshop: phasing out of the Multi-Fibre Agreement (MFA); and labor standards. Major recommendations arising from the workshop were to: a) set up a list serve to promote continued networking among the researchers (which has been done); b) publish country case studies along with specially commissioned thematic papers on MFA and labor standards -- possibly as an IDS Bulletin; and c) work towards a policy workshop on the two themes.

Non-Timber Forest Products

The products and regions covered in the Latin America study included: the babassu nut oil sector (collection and "breaking" done by women) in Brazil; and the Brazil nut export sector (peeling done by women) in Bolivia, Brazil and Peru. The study focused on the strategies adopted by Amazonian women to deal with the liberalization of the oil and nut markets. It also looked at the effects of the liberalization on gender relations throughout the stages of the Brazil nut and babassu nut value chains; and at the different models of social organization and mobilization, focusing on the women-workers organizations in each country. The project explored opportunities for exchange of experiences and knowledge among the grassroots groups of women in the three countries. In addition, an exchange program was included in the project to allow women who peel Brazil nuts to learn from a successful soap-manufacturing experience by women who break babassu-nuts. For more information, please click here.

3. Other Research Activities

An unanticipated but welcome outcome of these research activities was the establishment of a research collaboration with IDS, Sussex, in particular with its Globalization Team, that included the following:

• manual on global value chain analysis in the garment sector: Hubert Schmitz of IDS, Sussex and Dorothy McCormick of IDS, Nairobi, in consultation with a number of grassroots organizations working with home-based workers, prepared this manual designed to trace global value chains down to the homeworkers
  
• training workshops on global value chain (GVC) analysis in the garment sector: Hubert Schmitz and Dorothy McCormick have led several training workshop on global value chain analysis using the manual
  
• case-study on social protection for workers in the horticulture global value chain: prepared by Stephanie Barrientos (IDS, Sussex) and Armando Barrientos (then with the University of Manchester) for WIEGO’s Social Protection Programme.
  

Marketing Strategies

SEWA's Trade Facilitation Centre -

WIEGO played a technical advisory role in the development of SEWA’s Trade Facilitation Centre (TFC) set up to link rural producers in SEWA’s membership to global markets: the (then) Director of WIEGO’s Global Markets Programme wrote the original funding proposal for the International Finance Corporation (IFC); and two UK consultants (identified by WIEGO) have provided design and marketing services. One of these consultants, Jacqui MacDonald, continues to serve as a marketing consultant to SEWA and to WIEGO.

Documentation of Best Practices -

Marilyn Carr edited a book of case studies on best practices in linking women producers and workers with global markets called Chains of Fortune commissioned and published by the Commonwealth Secretariat. This book was launched at the September 2004 meeting of Finance Ministers from Commonwealth countries (along with the other book prepared by WIEGO, Mainstreaming Informal Employment and Gender in Poverty Reduction). Both books were also featured in a book launch organized by the Commonwealth Secretariat at the March 2005 meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women at the UN.

What is distinctive about WIEGO’s approach to its research and policy dialogues on globalization is that we seek to:

• bring a worker focus into the analysis, including a focus on those on the bottom rungs of global value chains (notably, homeworkers)
  
• bring the voices of workers in the global South into the process
  
• promote collaboration between researchers and activists organizing informal workers in all of its activities
  

For details on WIEGO’s research partners in these initiatives, see Research Partners and Collaborations.

WIEGO Current Activities

The priority goals and activities for the next two years of the Global Market Program are

• to build on the research in the three sets of on-going sectoral studies – in garments, food process, and non-timber forest products – with a view to carrying out a comparative analytical synthesis of the research findings;
  
• to strengthen and maintain the transnational research networks in order to promote future research, exchange between researchers, and dissemination of research findings on an on-going basis; and
  
• to further test and refine understanding for developing strategies to achieve greater market access for informal workers and producers

WIEGO Plans

The Global Markets Programme of WIEGO aims to investigate and highlight the impacts- both positive and negative - of global trade and investment policies on the livelihoods of the working poor in the informal economy. More specifically, the Programme focuses on comparative studies in different countries of informal workers in selected global value chains. These studies are designed to analyze global value chains from the perspective of workers/producers at the lowest ends of these chains (many of whom are women).

The priority goals and activities for the next two years of the Global Market Programme are:

• to bring the three sets of on-going sectoral studies – in garments, food processing and non-timber forest products - to a satisfactory close in one or more edited volumes findings and to effectively disseminate the research findings;
  
• to develop the WIEGO conceptual framework for analyzing impact of trade liberalization on informal wage workers and informal producers, including how to help informal wage workers and informal producers to cope with constraints posed by trade liberalization and to seize opportunities associated with trade liberalization;
  
• to strengthen and maintain the transnational research networks in order to promote future research, exchange between researchers, and dissemination of research findings on an on-going basis; and
  
• to further test and refine strategies for developing linkages to training and support mechanisms to increase the access of and competitiveness in global markets of informal workers and producers, including the development of a pilot initiative in African non-timber forest products to the export market;
  
• to broaden and deepen the involvement of the WIEGO Markets Programme in international networks involved in the promotion of International Labour Standards with a view to improving the working conditions of poor workers in the informal economy linked with international supply chains;
  
• to increase and strengthen the involvement and participation of informal workers and small producers, particularly from developing countries, in the WIEGO network.

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