Confab seeks social protection for informal workers

A global alliance on street vendors and informal traders has recommended social protection for informal economy workers. The alliance comprising StreetNet International, alongside Women In Informal Employment – Globalising and Organising, plans to develop an African regional position on social protection for informal economy workers.

It also provides action plan for regional activities, promote networking and alliance building between informal economy workers, the trade union movement and governments.

The Guardian gathered that social protection has been high on the agenda at the international and regional levels, since the pandemic exposed worrying gaps across Africa and beyond.

This is just as informal economy workers, although they provide essential services, particularly to poor urban communities, were among the most vulnerable groups left without support.

To address the gaps, a regional conference, slated to hold in Lagos next week, would be culminated through a process of capacity building, knowledge sharing and research to ensure social protection to informal economy workers.

The conference will be hosted by the StreetNet affiliate in Nigeria, the Federation of Informal Workers Organisations of Nigeria (FIWON), which considers social protection to be one of their priorities at national and regional level.

FIWON General Secretary, Gbenga Komolafe, said the conference would mark a major milestone in its advocacy for social protection coverage of working people in the informal economy.

He said it would help to sharpen perspectives of what is possible and feasible for governments in sub-Saharan Africa, in terms of providing practical, implementable schemes and programmes for informal economy workers to reduce vulnerabilities, as well as socio-economic exclusion.

WIEGO Director of Social Protection Programme, Laura Alfers, said: “This project drawn on the respective strengths of WIEGO’s research and technical content expertise and Streetnet’s worker education expertise will deliver interventions, which will help to systematise the social protection work of informal economy organisations in the Africa region.”

The conference is expected to feature speakers from WIEGO, StreetNet, ITUC Africa and the African platform on social protection, as well as representatives from governments.