The New Urban Normal Urban Sustainability and Resilience Post COVID-19

60 The New Urban Normal
Caroline Skinner, Women in Informal
Employment Globalizing and Organizing
FOCUS of the talk: to outline some important lessons from
the current crisis with regards to the informal economy
and the need to provide ’space’ for it.
Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing
(WIEGO) has activities and / or partners, many of whom are
worker-based movements, in over 90 countries.
Since the crisis started WIEGO has been monitoring the
impact of measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 on
informal workers, as well as government support measures
and uptake from informal workers for some of the support
measures that have been put in place. see COVID-19,
Informal Workers and WIEGO’s Work during this Crisis |
WIEGO) .
A. The bigger picture: WIEGO has worked very closely with
the International Labour Organization over the years for a
country comparable statistic. The calculations show that
two billion people, or 61 percent of the world’s workers
are informally employed. There is widespread recognition
that the measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 have
impacted particularly negatively on informal workers. This
is because their jobs are precarious and they lack the legal,
and social protections that otherwise cushion people in
KEY TAKE AWAYS
COVID-19 has negatively impacted the
livelihood of informal workers, especially
women. BUT… there are opportunities for
transformation: informal work has been
recognised as essential in some contexts;
in others informal workers have been
incorporated into new social protection
schemes. There have been innovations
that have come from the informal workers.