Through a partnership with the global research-policy-action network Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing or WIEGO, the ACC coordinates a research network on informal work in cities in the South. The work currently focuses on the following:
- Constructing city/urban level statistical profiles of informal work;
- Assessing the impact of the global economic crisis on the informal economy;
- Documenting and disseminating good policy and organisational practice;
- Monitoring the impact of mega events on the urban working poor;
- Conducting informal economy budget analyses;
- Creating an observatory of laws and policies that impact on the informal economy.
This work is done in collaboration with a consortium of membership based organisations (MBOs) of the working poor and international alliances of MBOs (see Inclusive Cities). This research and dissemination programme is conducted by a group of researchers largely located in the South and co-ordinated by Caroline Skinner.
Graphic: Regional estimates compiled by the wiego network in 2002 suggested that half to three-quarters of the non-agricultural workforce in developing countries was informally employed at the beginning of the 21st century.
