Terms of Reference for a National Consultant: Identification of barriers and opportunities to formalize women-led small economic units and their workers in Lagos and Rivers State, Nigeria

The ILO Recommendation on the Transition from the Informal to the Formal Economy, 2015 (No. 204) calls on member States to design coherent and integrated strategies to facilitate the transition from the informal to the formal economy, and recognizes the need for tailored approaches to address the diversity of situations and the specificity of national circumstances. Supporting enterprise formalization as a means of creating decent work opportunities for workers and economic units in the informal economy is a prominent pillar of the policy recommendations formulated in Recommendation 204. In line with this, the ILO has recently launched the “Promoting Gender Equality and Formalization through Women’s Entrepreneurship Development in Nigeria” project. One of the objectives of this project is to support the government and social partners to formulate and pursue locally adapted, evidence-based and strategic recommendations to promote women’s entrepreneurship development and facilitate the formalization of their legal status and the status of their workers, in order to improve working conditions and the resilience of the businesses.