WIEGO Blog

Overturning the Productivity Mandate: Putting People at the Centre

Federico Parra, Renata Farías

4 July 2024

It is a myth that cooperatives, which put people at the centre, are not a viable alternative to the current economic system because they lack productivity. Improving working conditions and people’s well-being favour productivity – not the other way around.

Recent Posts

Choral Mauladia poses near her cart where she sells vegetables at a local market

India’s Street Vendor Protection Act: Good on Paper But Is It Working?

Roopa Madhav

13 June 2022

India’s Street Vendor Protection Act was enacted after a long struggle and is widely lauded, yet a close look nearly a decade later shows its implementation is far from exemplary.

Law, Public Space

Malika, one of Dakar’s 19 communes d’arrondissement (administrative divisions), on 10 December 2021.

Waste Pickers Organize Into a Cooperative: Will Senegal Include Them in its Waste Management Plan?

Maguette Diop

19 May 2022

Waste pickers at the Mbeubeuss dumpsite have set up their own cooperative in an effort to be integrated into the new waste management model put forward by the government.

Inclusive Cities / Urban Policies, Organizing & Organizations, Social Protection, Women's Economic Empowerment, Collective Bargaining, Cooperatives/Unions/Organizing, Environment/Climate change, Future of Work, Gender and Waste Recycling, Poverty / Inequality

Waste pickers outside the Bhalswa landfill in Delhi

The Pandemic is Not Over

Christy Adeola Braham

26 April 2022

The rhetoric of an easing COVID-19 pandemic obscures the array of occupational health and safety risks that the world’s informal workers still face and that have accumulated during the pandemic.

COVID-19 Crisis, Social Protection, Workers’ Health, Workplace Safety

Abena Konadu, a trader at Tema Lorry Station Market, Accra, Ghana

World Bank’s Push for Individual Savings Provides Little Protection for Crisis-hit Workers

Florian Juergens-Grant

30 March 2022

A recently launched report by the World Bank that provides guidance on how to expand Social Protection for the Informal Economy in Africa and beyond, requires a response.

COVID-19 Crisis, Social Protection, Poverty / Inequality

Head antenatal nurse Margie Harriet Egessa providing antenatal counseling and checkups for a group of pregnant women at Mukujju clinic. This clinic is supported by DSW.

Worker-led Social Protection Schemes Provide a Lifeline

WIEGO Blog

22 March 2022

Informal economy worker-led social protection schemes are certainly not a substitute for universal social protection, but they can play a key role in its realization.

Social Protection, Workers’ Health