Policy Resource Guide on the Informal Economy and Decent Work
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This practical Policy Resource Guide, initiated and completed by the Employment Policy Department, is the first initiative to bring together in one volume, a synthesis of knowledge, policy innovations and good practices facilitating transition to formality highlighting the multiple pathways and the indispensable synergies and coherence amongst the objectives of employment promotion, social protection and upholding rights.
The informal economy is largely perceived as one of the major challenges realizing decent work worldwide. It is usually associated with decent work deficits, low quality of jobs, working poverty, low productivity, discrimination and exclusion, insecurity and vulnerabilities in the labour market. This does not only affect the individual but has detrimental effects for political and fiscal space for manoeuvre. This report is the ILO’s response to the constituents' need of support to design and implement adequate policies to facilitate transitions to formality. Those needs were prominently identified in form of the 2002 International Labour Conference Resolution on Decent Work and the Informal Economy, followed by a Tripartite Interregional Symposium held by the ILO in 2007.
The resource guide consists of nine sections:
- Decent Work and the informal economy: key conceptual issues
- Measurement of the Informal Economy: addressing statistical challenges
- Growth Strategies and Quality Employment Generation
- The Regulatory Environment and the Informal Economy
- Organization, Representation and Dialogue
- Promoting Equality and addressing discrimination
- Entrepreneurship, Skills Development, Finance
- Extension of Social Protection
- Local Development Strategies
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