Fields of work

Capacity Building for Leaders and Managers of Informal Sector Organisations

The 88^th Session of the International Labour Conference (June 2000) emphasized the importance of social dialogue and partnership for training. This is imperative in the case of the informal economy where employment and social protection issues call for multifaceted and integrated response. Social dialogue and building of partnerships among the ILO's tripartite partners and many other stakeholders in the field of skills development are critical elements of the operational strategy developed and pursued by the Community-based training" approach. Similarly, the Capacity-building Programme on Gender, Poverty and Employment (GPE), which promotes an integrated perspective to employment promotion and poverty reduction, regards social dialogue and consensus building as an integral and necessary part of national capacity building. The capacity for organisation and negotiation also figures prominently in the GPE.

To enable the informal sector to participate in the social dialogue there is a need to improve the capacity of leaders and managers of informal sector organisations.

Immediate objectives:

• Increased self-management and negotiating capacity of workers and operators, and their organisations, in the informal economy.
• Workers and operators in the informal economy effectively participate, through their organisations and representatives, in mechanisms of social dialogue and negotiation with governments and other institutional actors.

In this perspective a resource package for leaders and managers of informal sector organisations will be produced. The resource package will document experiences aimed at enhancing organisational capacities of informal sector organisations. It will complement the ILO Capacity-building Programme on Gender, Poverty and Employment. Like the GPE programme, the resource package for leaders and managers of informal sector organisations will be used in the framework of technical cooperation activities.