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There is no recovery without informal workers

 
Date(s) and time of event
Date(s) and time of event
Date(s) and time of event
Remote video URL

Informal workers — accounting for over 60% of global employment — have been hard hit by the pandemic. Women disproportionately occupy the most vulnerable forms of employment within the informal economy and shoulder a disproportionate burden for unpaid care.  

IDRC and Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) are co-hosting this panel discussion at the NGO CSW66 Forum, which will take place during the sixty-sixth session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).  

Drawing on new data from across 12 cities, this panel will provide an overview of impacts on women workers well over a year into the crisis across four employment sectors. The speakers will also explore the support informal worker organizations have provided to their members, public policies that have successfully reached women informal workers, and the demands that informal workers are making on their governments. The panel will provide critical reflections from researchers and labour leaders on gender-inclusive recovery and pathways for centering women informal workers in policy-making. 

Speakers:  

  • Marcela Valdivia, study officer, COVID-19 Crisis and the Informal Economy, WIEGO, United States  

  • Geeta Koshti, street vender leader, Self-Employed Women’s Association, India 

  • Carmen Roca, Lima focal city coordinator, WIEGO, Peru  

  • Wanna Phumeesook, home-based worker leader, Thailand 

Discussant: Janhavi Dave, international coordinator, HomeNet International

Moderator: Julie Shouldice, vice-president, Strategy, Regions and Policy, IDRC 

Simultaneous interpretation to English, French, Gujarati, Spanish and Thai, will be available.