Urban Policies Programme

Programme Activities Reshaping Urban Systems, Planning and Practice to Include Workers

The Urban Policies Programme focuses on making visible the size and contribution of the urban informal economy, and the drivers of both exclusion and inclusion. Integration of workers in informal employment into urban systems – planning, infrastructure provision, waste management, retail and food – under favourable terms is a key area of work. We provide direct support to processes of integration in the places we work – especially Brazil, South Africa and India – and work closely with Focal Cities. Much of our work is done alongside membership-based organizations of workers. We strive to support their advocacy, inform relevant policy and influence key communities of practice. We aim for a local-global virtuous circle where local evidence is used to secure gains that inform key global policy processes that in turn reinforce gains locally.

• Demonstrating the Size and Contribution of the Urban Informal Economy

  Key to securing inclusive policy and practice are accurate statistics. The Urban Policies Programme has long supported the Statistics Programme in generating estimates on the size and contribution of the urban informal economy, including guidelines to gather data on waste pickers and street traders. In addition, attention is paid to gathering and disseminating evidence on the contributions of home-based workers to cities, street vendors and market traders to urban food security, and waste pickers to municipal waste management systems and climate-change mitigation.

• Monitoring the State of the Urban Informal Economy

  The Urban Policies Programme, alongside Focal Cities, provides ongoing insights into the state of the urban informal economy. In 2023 and 2024, we assessed implications of the cost-of-living crisis for workers in informal employment in Bangkok and Accra.  This was a follow on from the multi-city COVID-19 crisis study, which showed the pandemic’s disproportionate impacts on workers in informal employment, especially women and specific worker groups, and how impacts lingered. This provided critical insights for city-level advocacy. Earlier multi-city studies include the 10-city Informal Economy Monitoring Study and the Global Economic Crisis Study. These studies are conducted alongside worker organizations and reflect the grounded reality of home-based workers, street/market traders and waste pickers, and how governments and other players help and hinder their work. We support advocacy efforts both in cities and globally.

• Understanding the Impacts of Climate Change on Urban Workers

  The impact of climate change on workers in informal employment is increasingly being reported as a crisis and highlighted as a key advocacy priority by worker movements. The Urban Policies Programme aims to understand and make visible the effects of climate change on the urban informal economy and especially on home-based workers, street vendors and waste pickers. As extreme weather intensifies, a focus has been on developing guidelines to mitigate health risks and proposals for resilient urban infrastructure.  The objective of this work is to enhance existing coping and adaptation strategies and secure concrete commitments to livelihood-supporting interventions in local and national policy and practice and in climate-change processes, notably the United Nations Conference of Parties and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

• Integrating Home-Based Workers, Street Vendors and Waste Pickers into Urban Systems

  Many who work informally live in informal settlements, and for some their homes double up as a workplace. For home-based work, we have worked on innovative approaches to secure tenure, housing finance, and appropriate zoning regulations. We work closely with Mahila Housing Trust.

  For street vending, along with Focal Cities, we support models of inclusive planning and design, for example, Asiye eTafuleni’s work in Warwick Junction, Durban, and Focal Cities’ work in Mexico City. In Delhi, a focus is monitoring the implementation of India’s Street Vendor Act. We have developed public space guidelines for workers, local government officials and policymakers.

  On waste picking, we have drafted resources on livelihood-centred approaches to dump closures, carbon finance and waste-to-energy initiatives. Cases of inclusion supported and monitored include Brazil, Colombia and India. In Brazil, we provide support to the Waste and Citizenship Forums and the Observatory for Inclusive Recycling.

• Securing Tax Justice for Workers in Informal Employment

  It is a myth that workers in informal employment are tax evaders, yet national governments and multilateral organizations continue their efforts to bring these workers “into the tax net”. The Urban Policies Programme aims to document and make visible the many taxes and fees that workers in informal employment make, often at the local level. This is with a view to influencing policy and to capacitate membership-based organizations of workers to negotiate with revenue authorities and local governments. We also work with partners that specialize in tax and development to engage with key global policy actors, including the OECD, the World Bank and the IMF.  Our tax work is most advanced in Senegal and Ghana where we have conducted large-scale research projects. Our work from Ghana, in particular, has shown how evidence is crucial to the design of fair and effective tax policies.

• Influencing Communities of Practice

  Critical to long-term change is influencing the communities of practice that shape urban livelihoods. This entails strategic partnerships and publishing. We have contributed to open-access edited volumes, notably COVID-19 and the Informal Economy and The Informal Economy Revisited, and initiated journal special issues, including on urban livelihoods for Environment and Urbanization. Long-term allies in our urban planning work are the Indian Institute for Human Settlements and the Association of African Planning Schools. In our waste work, we advise the International Solid Waste Association, the Pew Charitable Trusts on plastic policy, the Circulate Initiative, and WaterAid and Workplace Health Without Borders on health and safety issues. In our tax work, we have long partnered with the International Centre for Tax and Development, and on development-economics-related work, the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research.

• Engaging Global Policy Processes and Change Agents

  The Urban Policies Programme has a long history of engaging with relevant UN processes. Due to WIEGO and our allies’ efforts during the Habitat III process, the New Urban Agenda contains strong and positive language on the informal economy.  Work within the Plastics Treaty and Conference of Parties negotiations is a more recent focus. In our tax work, we regularly engage with international financial institutions – we hosted a joint webinar on tax design with the OECD and have ongoing collaborations with the World Bank’s Tax Programme. We participated in the development of the United Cities and Local Government Flagship Gold Report, contributing four papers. We are active members of the Global Platform for the Right to the City and the Cities Alliance. We share many of Slum Dwellers International’s concerns, and collaborate with them in international advocacy processes.