Informal Economy Podcast: Social Protection

La pandemia ha puesto de manifiesto la importancia crucial de la prestación de servicios de cuidado infantil. En este episodio, nos fijamos en cómo la Unión de Trabajadores de la Economía Popular (UTEP), una central sindical de trabajadores informales de Argentina, ha apoyado a las cooperativas de cuidado infantil para que presten estos servicios a los hijos de los trabajadores informales. Para en...

The pandemic has highlighted the crucial importance of child care provision. In this episode, we look at how the Unión de Trabajadores de la Economía Popular (UTEP), an informal workers central union in Argentina, has supported child care cooperatives to provide these services for informal workers’ children. To understand how these community child care centres work in Argentina, how they have been...

After two weeks of intense debates that took place from June 3rd to June 19th, the first segment of the 109th session of the International Labour Conference – ILC – is now over. In this episode, we talked to worker leaders who attended the ILC to share their impressions and learnings from the event that had Social Protection on the forefront of the debates. Featuring: Oksana Aboud, international C...

In this episode, we dive into the social aspects of Covid-19 vaccination, and try to understand its impact on informal workers. How are they affected by the policy choices? What are the barriers to access? And what does it have to do with the issue of economic justice? These and other questions were discussed in this talk with with Christy Braham. Christy is WIEGO’s Worker’s Health coordinator, sh...

In this episode, we explore how Covid-19 crisis affected informal workers care responsibilities and to which extent the government responses addressed informal workers’ needs in terms of income and food security, throughout 2020. WIEGO conducted a longitudinal survey with informal workers in 12 cities around the world, during the second and third quarters of 2020, and now the first findings are st...

In the second episode of the mini-series, the Informal Economy Podcast: social protection joins the “16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence against women”. We bring a series in two parts to talk about how gender-based violence impacts informal women workers and what they have been doing to face this important challenge, especially in a year marked by the Covid-19 global pandemic. Last w...

In this episode, the Informal Economy Podcast: social protection joins the “16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence against women”. In this special episode, we will bring a series in two parts to talk about how gender-based violence impacts informal women workers and what they have been doing to face this important challenge, especially in a year marked by the Covid-19 global pandemic. T...

In this episode, we explore the issue of the social protection needs for older informal workers. In the context of a growing aging population also in the developing world, the debates around schemes to guarantee access to these informal workers to healthcare and to income security has become increasingly important. To help us understand more about the fundamental concepts, debates and trends aroun...

In this month, we will dive into the topic of universal basic income, or UBI. In South Africa, the government has recently announced the intention of implementing this policy in the country, which was regarded as a very important step. To help us understand more about universal basic income, its debates and how it is taking in the South African context, we invited Isobel Frye. Isobel is the direct...

In this month, we go back to the ground to understand how the livelihoods of informal workers are being affected in two of the countries in Latin America most hit in the region by the Covid-19 crisis: Mexico and Peru. We invited two guests who are working closely with informal workers. From Mexico, Tania Espinoza, Mexico City Focal City Coordinator at WIEGO. And from Peru, we bring Carmen Roca, Li...

En este mes, volvemos al terreno para comprender cómo se están afectando los medios de vida de los trabajadores del sector informal en dos de los países de América Latina más afectados en la región por la crisis de Covid-19: México y Perú. Invitamos a dos especialistas que están trabajando estrechamente con los trabajadores informales. De México, Tania Espinoza, Coordinadora de la Ciudad Focal de...

And in this episode, we bring you the third and last part of the especial mini-series on social protection for informal workers in the context of the Covid-19 global pandemic. We will look more closely on how governments around the world are responding to the global crisis in order to address to the urgent social protection needs of vulnerable people, in particular, informal workers. To help us un...

In this second episode of the mini-series, we will hear the concrete impact on the lives of informal workers in cities around the world, with brief updates from the ground from WIEGO team members who work closely with informal workers. We also bring the account from two workers leaders themselves, on how the lockdown is affecting their lives and those of their comrades. I talked to 11 people from...

In this month, we start a especial mini-series on social protection for informal workers in the context of the Covid-19 global pandemic. This global health crisis has brought many countries, cities and states to a halt, as authorities try to slow down the spread and “flatten the curve”.This unprecedented lockdown has also deep social and economic consequences, and impact the lives of billions of w...

In this International Women’s Day episode we will discuss a very important topic for women informal workers: child care. As women are most often the primary responsible for looking after their children, without quality child care services, they either have to forgo paid work or are less productive because they have watch their children while trying to work. Child care is vital, especially in the p...

In the first episode of the year we will discuss numbers! Statistics are a powerful tool to shed light on the informal economy, and to make informal workers visible in policy arenas. In order to help us understand better the linkages between social protection and statistics, the challenges, limitations and the most recent research on the field we invite two special guests: Françoise Carré and Fran...

In this episode, we invited Christina Behrendt. Christina, head of the Social Policy Unit at the ILO, to talk about the relations between the Future of Work and the challenges to extend social protection to the so-called “missing middle”, the informal economy workers. We discussed how policies to provide social protection to informal workers can help the debate around forms of work associated to t...

Dans cet épisode, nous vous apportons un entretien avec Komi Kessouagni. Komi est le Coordinateur du Point Focal Régional StreetNet pour l'Afrique de l'Ouest et du Centre. On a parlé sur les défis des travailleurs informels au Togo pour avoir l’accès à la protection social, aussi bien comme les initiatives des travailleurs eux-mêmes, pour offrir des services de soins à ceux qui ne sont pas couvert...

In this episode, we bring you an interview with Liliane Napoe, of the Danish Trade Union Development Agency. Liliane is the International Adviser and Head of the West African sub-regional office, based in Lomé, where she has been supporting informal workers in their effort to expand social protection and in their attempt to form a coalition to push for social rights for informal workers. We talked...

In this month, WIEGO’s Social Protection programme director, Laura Alfers, was in Thailand for the Association of South East Asian Nations People’s Forum, or ASEAN People’s Forum for short, where civil society organizations representatives have gathered, in Bangkok, to prepare for the ASEAN Summit that will happen from 31st of October to November 4th also in Thailand. The regional network of home-...

In 2015, the ILO’s International Labour Conference adopted the Recommendation about the Transition from the Informal to the Formal Economy, the R204. To help us understand what is the R204, what is the importance of it, what has been done until now and the challenges ahead, we will talk to Jane Barrett Jane is WIEGO’s Organization and Representation programme director and she has been leading the...

Who should bear the main burden of social service: is it the state, the private sector, NGOs, communities or individuals? This is a very complex discussion, so central to questions of rising inequality. In order to contribute to this debate, Laura Alfers has published a paper for the UNRISD Conference “Overcoming Inequalities in a Fractured World: Between Elite Power and Social Mobilization”, whic...

La violencia y el acoso en el lugar de trabajo afectan a muchos trabajadores en todo el mundo, especialmente a las mujeres. Es un fenómeno tan generalizado que se incluyó en el orden del día de la próxima conferencia internacional del trabajo, que tendrá lugar en los próximos días en ginebra, donde la cuestión será objeto de una segunda ronda de debates, con vistas a la adopción de un convenio de...

Violence and harassment at the workplace affect many workers all over the world, especially women. It is such a pervasive phenomenon that it was included in the agenda of the next International Labour Conference, which will take place the coming days in Geneva, where the issue will be up for a second round of discussions, with a view to the adoption of an ILO convention. It is important to bear in...

Child care is often regarded as part of the education policy, centred around early childhood care and development. But child care is also the provision of a service that has a close relation to social protection and women economic empowerment. Informal women workers' low earnings mean they work long hours to secure their family livelihood, often times leaving little time for them to care for child...