WIEGO Electronic Newsletter
Durban General Assembly Special Edition
Volume VII
January - June 2006
Dear All -
In April 2006, WIEGO held its fourth general meeting in Durban,
South Africa: this landmark event marked the transition to WIEGO's
new governance structure with formal Members. Please
click here to read a report on the General Assembly with links to
the various presentations and outputs from the meeting. Please
also have a look at the General Assembly website for more details
and photos from the event as well as the Urban Policies Colloquium
that followed immediately after it.
In addition to planning and preparing for these events in Durban
in April, WIEGO was involved in the following events and publications
(listed in reverse chronological order) during the first half of
2006:
World Urban Forum
WIEGO co-hosted with the Urban Economy Branch of UN Habitat, an
event entitled 'Innovative Policies for the Urban Informal Economy'
at the Third World Urban Forum in Vancouver on June 22, 2006. Caroline
Skinner (School of Development Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal)
presented an overview of recent statistics and challenges to incorporating
informal workers into urban plans while Richard Dobson (eThekwini
Municipality) reported on the innovative Warwick Junction Inner
City Renewal Project in Durban, South Africa. They spoke along side
Frederico Neto (Urban Economy Branch, UN Habitat) who reflected
on the findings of a recent six city study on informal economy policy
innovations and Paulo Jiron (London School of Economics) who is
working on the impact of transportation routes on livelihoods in
Latin America. It was a lively event attended by, among others,
government officials, international agency staff and planner / economic
development consultants. There was particular interest in the Warwick
Junction Project as a concrete example of how poor people can be
integrated into urban plans. The contents of the event were in line
with the overall theme of the conference 'Our Future: Sustainable
Cities * Turning Ideas into Action'.
To read more about the World Urban Forum, click
here.
To read more about the "Innovative
Policies for the Urban Informal Economy" session,
click here.
International Labour Conference: General
Discussion on the Scope of the Employment Relationship
Chris Bonner, Director of WIEGO’s Organization and Representation
programme, was in Geneva in June to monitor the General Discussion
on the Scope of the Employment Relationship at the 95th International
Labour Conference, for WIEGO’s law project, and to provide
support to the StreetNet delegation and the International Coordinating
Committee (ICC) that is promoting organizing in the informal economy.
The discussion on the employment relationship was an important discussion
for the many workers in the informal economy who fall outside the
ambit of labour protection because their employment relationship
is disguised, hidden or unclear, allowing employers to avoid their
responsibilities. Despite opposition and downright obstruction by
the Employers Group, the ILC adopted a positive Recommendation that
we hope will assist informal workers in their struggle for inclusion
under labour law in their various countries.
To read the Report of the Committee on the
Employment Relationship, click
here.
Graduation at the Kennedy School of
Government at Harvard University: Ela Bhatt
Ela Bhatt, founder of SEWA and founding Chair of the WIEGO Steering
Committee, was invited to deliver the graduation speech at the Kennedy
School of Government at Harvard University in June. Ela Bhatt was
introduced by David Ellwood, Dean of the Kennedy School. The speech
was attended by over 500 Kennedy School graduates and their families
as well as Harvard University faculty and staff plus local NGO leaders.
To read Ela Bhatt's speech,
click here.
To view photos of this event, click
here.
Economic and Political Weekly Special Issue,"A Review of Labour":
Contributions by WIEGO Authors
Marty Chen (WIEGO Coordinator), Joann Vanek (Statistics Programme
Director), and James Heintz (Statistics Programme Research Coordinator)
and WIEGO Members Alakh Sharma, Paula Kantor, Uma Rani and Jeemol
Unni contributed papers to the "Review of Labour" section
of a recent issue of the Indian journal Economic and Political Weekly.
This section also included labour-related articles by Jonathan Shapiro
Anjaria, Meenakshi Rajeev, Zeenat Hisam, Arup Mitra, S. Sakthivel
and Pinaki Joddar.
To read an article by a WIEGO Member, please click on the relevant
title:
Informality,
Gender and Poverty: A Global Picture by Martha Chen, Joann Vanek
and James Heintz
Decent
Work Deficits in Informal Economy: Case of Surat by Paula Kantor,
Uma Rani and Jeemol Unni
Flexibility,
Employment and Labour Market Reforms in India by Alakh N. Sharma
Expert Group on Informal Sector Statistics
(Delhi Group)
The Ninth Meeting of the Delhi Group was held in New Delhi 11-12
May 2006. Two major new topics considered by the Group were: a chapter
on informal sector in the revised System of National Accounts (SNA)
and a progress report on the preparation of the manual on surveys
on informal employment and informal sector. It was decided that
the draft of the SNA chapter and the draft manual will be reviewed
at the next meeting of the Delhi Group which will take place at
the ILO in 2007. The other two topics considered were: measuring
the contribution of informal sector/informal employment to GDP and
measuring the links between poverty and informal employment. Jacques
Charmes prepared a paper for the former topic: “Measurement
of the contribution of informal sector/informal employment to GDP
in developing countries: some conceptual and methodological issues”
and James Heintz and Joann Vanek prepared a note for the latter
topic: “Employment, Gender and poverty: A note on Methods
used in the 2005 Progress of the World’s Women.” The
papers presented at the Delhi Group meeting will be available on
the Delhi Group website shortly; the note by Heintz and Vanek is
available on the WIEGO Statistics Programme website.
UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC):
Preparatory Meetings on the Theme of the 2006 High-Level Segment
of ECOSOC
For the past several years, the WIEGO network has been part of a
larger effort together with the International Labour Organization
and others to put “productive employment and decent work”
at the center of global and national efforts to reduce poverty and
inequality. At the September 2005 United Nations Millennium Summit,
“productive employment and decent work” were a) added
to the priority goals for the Millennium Development Project and
b) identified as the key theme for the 2006 high-level meeting of
the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). As part of the preparation
for the 2006 high-level segment meeting of ECOSOC in July, Marty
Chen was invited to speak on informal employment at two recent meetings
at ECOSOC: one in April, another in May.
To view the website for the Department of Economic
and Social Affairs (DESA) Development Forum on Productive Employment
and Decent Work which took place on May 8-9 2006, click
here.
To read Marty Chen's powerpoint
presentation, "Rethinking the Informal Economy: Linkages
with the Formal Economy
and the Formal Regulatory Environment," was presented on
May 9th, click
here.
To view the website for the the Informal Preparatory
Meeting on the Theme of the 2006 High Level Segment which took
place on April 4-5 2006, click
here.
To read Marty Chen's powerpoint presentation,
"The Urban Informal Economy: A Supportive Policy Framework,"
which was presented on April 5th, click
here.
To read Marty Chen's powerpoint presentation,
"Women, Work and Poverty: Defining the Problem, Finding
the Solutions," which was presented on April 5th,
click here.
World Bank Private Sector Development
Forum: Seminar on the Informal Economy
In April, Marty Chen was asked by the World Bank to speak in the
opening session of a half-day seminar on the informal economy which
was organized in conjunction with the Bank’s annual Private
Sector Development Forum.
Global Labour Research Forum Planning
Meeting
The Global Labour Research Forum is an emerging group of (mostly)
economists in (mostly) Asian countries, who are developing new conceptual
thinking on labour markets and employment. WIEGO was asked to organize
a plenary panel on “Social Protection for Informal Workers”
at the Second Global Labour Forum held in New Delhi, India in December
2005. The panel was chaired by SEWA”s Renana Jhabvala, and
presentations were given by SEWA’s Mirai Chatterjee, Homenet
Thailand’s Boonsom Wansomboon and their consultant researcher
Donna Doane, and WIEGO’s Francie Lund. The panel was well
received, and WIEGO was then invited to be a collaborating partner
in organizing the third meeting of the Forum, to be held in Sweden
in 2007, and to be hosted by the Swedish National Institute for
Working Life. The theme of the next Forum will be Mobility of Capital
and Labour. In March 2006, Francie Lund traveled to Geneva to participate
in the first planning meeting for the third meeting of the Forum.
WIEGO is interested in using the occasion to advance its work on
a) the global migration of women in the health care and other sectors;
b) the overlap between informality and migrant labour; and c) the
relative immobility of labour (compared to capital) in global value
chains.
International Symposium “SEEDS
of Change: Promoting Decent Work for Low-Income Women”
This symposium, held in New York City in February 2006, marked the
25th anniversary of the
SEEDS pamphlet series that documents innovative practice in
support of women’s economic empowerment. The two-day symposium
was designed to bridge and connect different fields of practice
that seek (often in distinct and uncoordinated ways) to promote
the economic empowerment of working poor women: micro-finance, micro-enterprise
development, assets and livelihood development, fair trade and global
marketing, labour advocacy and organizing. The featured speakers
from each field of practice included a strategic mix of practitioners/activists,
researchers, and staff of development agencies. Marty Chen (WIEGO
Coordinator) was asked to help organize – and provide the
conceptual framework for – the symposium; and to speak in
the opening plenary on both days of the symposium. Together with
Pat Horn (StreetNet International and WIEGO Steering Committee),
she also organized and was a featured speaker in the panel on Labour
Advocacy and Organizing. Together with Marilyn Carr (ex-Director
of WIEGO’s Global Markets programme), Elaine Jones (new Director
of WIEGO’s Global Markets programme) organized and was a featured
speaker in the panel on Fair Trade and Global Markets.
________________________________________________________________________
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