ILO Session on Gender and Informality

November 16, 2018

Workers in the informal economy from six different sectors. A Domestic Worker, a Garment Worker, a Home-Based Worker, a Street Vendors / Market Trader, a Transport Worker, and a Waste Picker.

Every year the International Labour Organization (ILO) hosts an international Academy on the transition to the formal economy.

The third edition of this biennial activity held from November 12- 23, 2018, offered a learning platform to review promising practices on the transition from the informal to the formal economy as well as to engage in constructive dialogue and debate on the future of informality.

As part of this event, Dr. Sonia Dias, WIEGO’s Waste Picker Specialist delivered a 180-minute presentation on Gender and Informality on November 16, 2018. This session attempted to:

Look into data on women and informality (from the joint publication from ILO and WIEGO);
Discuss particular challenges women workers in the informal economy are facing;

Allow for some gender analysis about the main causes, but most importantly;

Look into some concrete examples of tools and strategies to address those challenges. (e.g. cooperatives of waste pickers, of home-based workers, the care economy …).

Colleagues from the ILO and ITCILO colleagues also made a contribution to this session which was very insightful.