Region: Africa

Waste Pickers Organize Into a Cooperative: Will Senegal Include Them in its Waste Management Plan?

Waste pickers at the Mbeubeuss dumpsite have set up their own cooperative in an effort to be integrated into the new waste management model...

World Bank’s Push for Individual Savings Provides Little Protection for Crisis-hit Workers

A recently launched report by the World Bank that provides guidance on how to expand Social Protection for the Informal Economy in Africa...

Extending social protection for informal workers in Togo

Informal Workers in Senegal: A Statistical Profile

In Senegal, 84 per cent of employment is informal. This brief examines six groups of informal workers who comprised over three-quarters of...

Social Protection for Self-Employed Informal Workers in Sub-Saharan Africa: A rights-based assessment of the impact of the COVID-19 crisis

Informal workers make up a large proportion of the “missing middle” in social protection – those who are not considered vulnerable enough...

Worker-led Social Protection Schemes Provide a Lifeline

Informal economy worker-led social protection schemes are certainly not a substitute for universal social protection, but they can play a...

International Women’s Day 2022

For International Women’s Day, WIEGO looks at the foundation that women leaders of worker organizations have laid during the pandemic...

Coura Ndiaye – a waste picker leader in Dakar, Senegal

Coura Ndiaye – or “Mother Coura” as people call her out of respect for her age and the number of years she has worked as a waste picker –...

Rukaya Bawule, a kayayei leader in Accra, Ghana

Rukaya Bawule is 26 years old and a leader of the kayayei, or headporters, in Agbogbloshie market in Accra, Ghana. Through her organization,...

COVID-19 Crisis and the Informal Economy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: Lasting Impacts and an Agenda for Recovery

Domestic workers’ limited legal and social protection in Tanzania has compounded the impact of the pandemic on workers’ socio-economic circumstances....