The Ghana National Health Insurance Scheme: barriers to access for informal workers
Ghana’s National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) is an innovative attempt to extend social protection to informal workers, and, as such, it may hold important policy lessons for other countries where the informal economy is large and growing and where informal workers are excluded from existing social protection mechanisms. Few...
Read MoreWork-related social protection for informal workers
The informal workforce is growing worldwide, and changes in the global structure of employment and in places of employment mean that work is a source of hazard and ill-health for many poorer workers. Yet informal workers do not have access to work-related social security. They face high work-related risks,...
Read MoreThe informal economy and decent work: supporting transitions to formality: a resource guide
This practical Policy Resource Guide is the first initiative to bring together a synthesis of knowledge, policy innovations and good practices facilitating transition to formality. Chapter 8.1 deals specifically with the extension of social security to persons in the informal economy. Link to the resource guide Link to chapter...
Read MoreInclusion of Vulnerable Groups
As a human right that is intrinsic to all, the international community recognizes the need to design and implement social protection systems according to the principle of social inclusion, underlying the particular need to include persons in the informal economy (Recommendation No. 202, para 3e). Delivery systems should therefore...
Read MoreAccess to courts and the right to work for informal traders in South Africa
Upon an urgent request, the Constitutional Court of South Africa intervened in a lower court affair to prevent the municipal government and Metropolitan Police Force from hindering what was asserted to be lawful activity by informal traders under the auspices of “Operation Clean Sweep”. Until the legality of the...
Read MoreHandbook on the extension of social security coverage to the self-employed
In many countries, a large proportion of the working-age population can be considered as self-employed – in both the formal and informal sectors. Given the challenges in covering the self-employed, this development means that a relatively small proportion of the total population may be covered for social security benefits. Targeted measures...
Read MoreThe transition from the informal to the formal economy, 103rd and 104th Session of the International Labour Conference
The informal economy is significantly impacting the world of work, with as much as 40–80 per cent of the labour force in developing countries working within it. Increasingly, transition to formality has emerged as a priority policy agenda in developed and developing countries, and new policy initiatives and approaches...
Read MoreSemi-conditional cash transfers in the form of family allowances for children and adolescents in the informal economy in Argentina
In 2009, Argentina introduced a new transfer programme for children and adolescents younger than age 18 (Universal Child Allowance) that extended coverage under the contributory programme for family allowances to include families in the informal economy and families of unemployed persons. This article describes this innovative programme, compares it...
Read MoreSocial Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202)
Recommendation No. 202 is the first international instrument to offer guidance to countries to close social security gaps and progressively achieve universal protection through the establishment and maintenance of comprehensive social security systems. To this aim, the Recommendation calls for (1) the implementation, as a priority, of social protection...
Read MoreInformal and precarious workers
Most workers in the informal economy do not have access to social protection. In addition, many workers in precarious conditions are insufficiently protected. Expanding social protection coverage to these groups of workers can reduce their vulnerability, improve income security and health care access, enable them to plan ahead, and...
Read MoreIncorporating the Informal Sector in Social Protection Programmes for Universal Realization of the Rights to Social Security
Informal economy workers: A heterogeneous group Informal economy workers are far from being a homogeneous group or a sector.1 Indeed differences in terms of income, sector (agriculture, industry for example), status in employment (such as employers, own account workers, casual workers, informal employees, sub-contracted workers) have been identified. WIEGO...
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