WIEGO starts a new phase of its podcast. From this episode onwards, we will gain a better understanding of the pieces of the social protection system, in order to better understand the challenges, opportunities and difficulties faced by informal workers. All this by offering the workers' perspective, from a bottom-up approach.

At this stage, we will give special attention to the issue of digitalisation, although it will not be the only aspect discussed here. We will look at how technology is being used to improve the inclusion of informal workers, but also understand the risks and challenges involved.

In the next episodes, we will investigate the different parts of the social protection system, and look at it as a solar system, in which at the centre are policy, legislation, governance, financing; then outside are programme designs, eligibility and related issues; and finally, implementation issues - such as registration, delivery of benefits etc.
In the first episode of the systems’ mapping, building blocks approach, we dive into the topic of financing social protection schemes for informal workers. Finance is one of the key elements of the social protection “solar system”, and it is particularly challenging in the case of informal workers, who in many cases don’t have an employer to share the burden of the costs of healthcare, pensions, child care and other labour benefits.

We will learn more about two experiments of alternative financing of social protection and decent work for waste pickers in Pune, India, and in Buenos Aires, Argentina. First, I talked to Lákshimi Narayan, the founder of the waste picker organization KKPKP. In the second part, you will listen to a conversation with Andrés Cappa. Andrés is a lecturer at the Faculty of Economics at the Universidad Nacional de Lomas de Zamora and at the Universidad de Buenos Aires.
They both will tell us more about how workers’ movements managed use extended producer responsibility frameworks to leverage advances towards the extension of social protection and better work conditions in their respective countries.

*Our theme music is Focus from AA Aalto (Creative Commons)

References

Pune Waste Pickers’ Innovative Efforts to Fund the Extension of Decent Work and Social Protection, WIEGO Resource Document 33. Available at: https://www.wiego.org/publications/pune-waste-pickers-innovative-efforts-fund-extension-decent-work-and-social-protection

Efforts of Argentina’s Informal Waste Pickers to Finance Decent Work and Social Protection through Extended Producer Responsibility Legislation, WIEGO Resource Document 34. Available at: https://www.wiego.org/publications/efforts-argentinas-informal-waste-pickers-finance-decent-work-and-social-protection