Article

Membership Based Organizations of the Poor: Concepts, Experience and Policy

Authors:
To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the authors.

No full-text available

Request Full-text Paper PDF

To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.

... There are various types of organisations that street traders form and join, in an effort to advance their voice and influence on practice. One such type is membership-based organisations which according to Chen, Jhabvala, Kanbur and Richards (2006:3) are organisations '…in which the members elect their leaders and which operate on democratic principles that hold the elected officers accountable to the general membership'. These organisations have democratic governance structures, which are intended to provide internal accountability as leaders are elected, and external legitimacy through representation of constituencies by the leaders (Chen et al, 2006;Bonner and Spooner, 2012). ...
... One such type is membership-based organisations which according to Chen, Jhabvala, Kanbur and Richards (2006:3) are organisations '…in which the members elect their leaders and which operate on democratic principles that hold the elected officers accountable to the general membership'. These organisations have democratic governance structures, which are intended to provide internal accountability as leaders are elected, and external legitimacy through representation of constituencies by the leaders (Chen et al, 2006;Bonner and Spooner, 2012). The constitution of membership-based organisations thus relies on 'long established and widely accepted formula for democratic political representation' (Houtzager and Lavalle, 2009:2), which sometimes falls short in the context of street trading organisations. ...
... There are various types of street trader membership-based organisations which vary in size, scope, character and structure (Chen et al, 2006;Bonner and Spooner, 2012). These include primary organisations, federations and networks of membership-based organisations. ...
Thesis
Full-text available
The study investigates the role and influence of street trader leaders in the everyday management of street trade. The study uses three sites in South Africa– Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni – and one in Ahmedabad in India. The main research question that this study asks is what is the role and influence of street trader leaders in the everyday management of street trade? This broad question is broken down into the following sub-questions that guided the study: What are the prevailing street trader representative structures in the case study areas? What are the various configurations of these representative structures and their internal dynamics? How do the leaders relate to state actors and how do these relations translate to the extent of leaders’ participation in everyday management of street trade? What are the leaders’ roles in the governance of street trade? The study argues that there are various configurations of street traders’ representative structures with different organising dynamics that allow for diverse interactions with state actors. There are representative structures whose leaders operate on the margins of the state and those that act as quasi-state bureaucrats and this has an effect on the dynamics of interface with state actors and the extent of their participation in urban governance. While both antagonism and cooperation are used at varying degrees, leaders on the margins of the state tend to rely on the former while quasi-state bureaucrats rely mainly on the latter to access the state. Quasi-state bureaucrats have been formally included in the everyday management of street trade by delegating certain official duties such as allocating trading spaces and managing waiting lists. Leaders on the margins on the other hand, are excluded from official processes but find ways of inserting themselves.
... inciples. Crowley et. al. (2007) suggest the following criteria for identifying MBOPs: (i) the majority of members are poor, (ii) they have joined on a voluntary basis, (iii) they have developed, agreed upon, and engage in their own decision-making structures, and (iv) they provided contribution, financial or in kind, as a condition of membership. Chen et. al. (2007) identify a wide range of MBOPs globally, including: trade unions, cooperatives, worker committees, savings and credit groups/ Self-Help Groups (SHGs), community based finance associations, funeral associations, informal insurance institutions, producer groups, village or slum associations, community based organizations representing trad ...
... n to these primary groups, there are sometimes federations which link them to each other and to the broader institutional system. From this very broad range of structures that might qualify as MBOPs, of particular interest are those that organize themselves around the identity of poor members as workers or around work or livelihood related issues. Chen et. al (2007) provide an overview of a volume devoted to global experience with MBOPs including: informal workers' committees in China; committees formed to 4 manage specific projects in Brazil; trade unions in India and South Africa; cooperatives in South America, India and Cambodia; small SHGs in Africa and India; street vendor organizations in Per ...
... This section draws heavily on Chen, Jhabvala,Kanbur and Richards (2007) ...
... It is these characteristics that separate most NGOs from other forms of indigenous civil society entities, as Table 1 illustrates. We refer to as membership-based organizations (MBOs) more traditional forms of civil society organizations such as social movements, political, or religious institutions, trade unions, cooperatives, small self-help groups, and campaigning organizations, among others (Chen, Jhabvala, Kanbur, & Richards, 2007). Research on NGOs has been limited when it comes both to the experiences of social movements and the 'solidarity NGOs' that support them, the latter which tend to be smaller, less formal, and more politically radical than most NGOs involved in international development (Andrews, 2014). ...
... They are formed and gain strength from their grassroots membership, and are accountable to their members in terms of their strategies, programs, and activities, all of which serve the fundamental purpose of leveraging improved terms of recognition for group members and advancing their interests. MBOs can respond to the needs and aspirations of their members because they are accountable both inward (leaders are elected) and outward (leaders represent their constituencies) (Chen et al., 2007). In contrast, NGOs lack the same ability to act as a countervailing power given their lack of membership, representation, and weak links to grassroots constituents. ...
Article
Full-text available
Serious questions remain about the ability of NGOs to meet long-term transformative goals in their work for development and social justice. We investigate how, given their weak roots in civil society and the rising tide of technocracy that has swept through the world of foreign aid, most NGOs remain poorly placed to influence the real drivers of social change. However we also argue that NGOs can take advantage of their traditional strengths to build bridges between grassroots organizations and local and national-level structures and processes, applying their knowledge of local contexts to strengthen their roles in empowerment and social transformation.
... Brett (2000), Lewis (2003), Fisher (1994), Najam (1996), and Uphoff (1993) have expanded on such sectoral distinctions, arguing that there is a unique voluntary communitarian ethos that these organizations share, functioning through " commitment of their workers, volunteers, and members and not primarily through financial remuneration based on profit making " (Lewis, 2003, p. 328). Sectoral typifications of this kind ignore organizational heterogeneity, thus blurring the distinction, for example, between membership-based organizations and principled outsiders (Chen, Jhabvala, Kanbur & Richards, 2007; Mintzberg & Srinivas, 2009), and drawing firm boundaries, which in practice are fluid, between concepts of the market, the state, and the voluntary sector. The complex cross-sector alliances that typify developmental interventions (Mageli, 2005) make it especially problematic to conceptualize a distinctive sector. ...
... Uphoff's (1993, 1995) useful typology of organizational actors in international development identified grassroots-based actors as the " true " third sector . Does the term NGO, then, describe both organizations representing the grassroots and those helping the grassroots (Brown & Kalegaonkar, 2002; Padron, 1989; Uphoff, 1995; Young et al., 1999), externally assisted intermediary organizations as well as self-generating startups (Avina, 1993) , membership-based as well as nonmembership-based organizations (Chen et al., 2007)? These questions point to the need for a discussion sensitive to the diversity of these organizations, with some recognition of the consequences of assuming that the shared NGO label is sufficient. ...
Article
Full-text available
Through a review of two bodies of critical literature, within management studies and development studies respectively, the implications of a critical perspective for our understanding of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) is presented.
... For comparative analysis of five outlier cases where an aid agency played more determinative roles in driving openings from above, see Fox (2020). 22 On the contributions of mass membership organizations of the poor to development, see Chen, Jhabvala, Kanbur and Richards (2007) and Esman and Uphoff (1984), among others. ...
Article
Full-text available
Policy reformers often make bold promises to improve government responsiveness to citizen demands. Yet such proclaimed openings from above often fall short, get diverted, or are blocked. This study uses the state-society synergy approach to analyze exceptional cases when reformers within the state managed to deliver openings for citizen action that tangibly empowered otherwise excluded or marginalized groups. What happens when these reform strategies are attempted? We used process tracing, combined with qualitative comparative analysis, to identify patterns across 19 cases in the global South where state actors created a more enabling environment for citizens’ collective action. The study compares the triggers and scope of enabling state actions, the breadth and intensity of collective action, roadblocks within the state, and whether or not these interactive processes led to substantive power shifts in favor of the excluded. We find that half of these openings led to shifts towards greater power for either citizens or reformist actors within public institutions, in spite of both structural obstacles and governmental roadblocks. Notably, power shifts occurred where reformers’ initiatives to enable collective action were themselves most intensive (often but not always backed by political change). Windows of opportunity were often open only briefly, until reformers lost power, and the pathways that led to power shifts combined collaborative and adversarial relationships. The power shifts identified were all incremental and uneven, and many were limited to subnational arenas. Though some later stalled or were partly rolled back, from the point of view of socially and politically excluded groups they represented tangible improvements in the balance of power. While tangible openings from above are rare and conventional theory would expect little institutional change, the state-society synergy framework shows how state actions to reduce the risks or costs of collective action can enable pathways to power shifts.
... These institutions combine the flexibility of informal credit with the transparency of institutional credit while adhering to the doctrines of cooperation, solidarity, ethics and democratic self-management. The SHG-based model, in particular, has not only helped credit-deprived masses gain access to credit and but also provided a women-centric platform for their empowerment and collective action (Chen, Jhabvala, Kanbur, & Richards, 2007). However, these SHGs operate as an institution themselves, pursuing the hybrid objectives of microfinance programs, which entail, apart from financial sustainability, social outreach and impact as well. ...
Article
Full-text available
Group-based micro-credit initiatives, as part of the broader social and solidarity-based finance initiatives, have gained prominence over the past decade, especially in developing economies like India. Lending to the poor, especially women, through micro-credit groups, are significantly associated with the utilization of commons. Apart from their financial operations, self-help groups promote social empowerment activities and collective action following a dual bottom-line approach. However, the causal role of the group’s motivation towards pursuing social objectives has not been explored in the past. The present study, therefore, investigates the interlinkages between the group’s intrinsic motivation and efficiency using an innovative two-stage double bootstrapped DEA-based methodology.
... Member (or membership) based organizations (MBOs) offer the potential of uniting smallscale farmers in developing countries (Chen et al., 2006). MBOs can exist at a local level to enable the clustering of small-scale farmers. ...
Article
The effects of COVID19 have been severe in developing countries. It has been a particularly difficult time for informal small-scale farmers who live in rural areas and lack formal safety nets. These farmers are the cornerstone of national food security strategies. In this perspectives paper, we discuss how circular economy principles could help these farmers reduce their states of vulnerability whilst engaging with nonlinear pathways of formalization. We argue that circular principles can go hand-in-glove with processes of formalization as long as interventions are made to help informal small-scale farmers overcome structural problems. We make a series of recommendations for policy makers and other stakeholders.
... For example, in , the need for differentiating between NGOs and member-based organizations (MBOs), is suggested because they are influenced to a variable extent by the politics of development. MBOs, such as social movements, political or religious institutions, trade unions, cooperatives, small SHGs, and campaigning groups, are viewed as political (Chen et al. 2007). MBOs aim to negotiate improved terms of recognition, and advance interests of the groups they are representing. ...
Technical Report
Full-text available
This literature review is the result of collaboration between Wageningen University & Research, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and Lehigh University. It was conducted in the context of the research programme Supporting the political role of CSOs for inclusive development. Assumptions underlying Dialogue and Dissent. This research programme aims to strengthen the evidence-base of the core assumptions of the Theory of Change underlying the civil society policy framework ‘Dialogue and Dissent’ of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
... re useful to apply this idea in case of group development and interesting the result found in most cases is as very positive. In India, the Self-Help groups (SHGs) constitute a widely accepted development strategy for poverty reduction as they are perceived as powerful vehicles for the promotion of microcredit and microfinance especially for women (Chen et. al, 2007). Therefore needless to say that microfinance provided by rural banks through participation in work in SHGs is the best way of challenging poverty both in rural and urban areas. ...
Article
Full-text available
Poverty and hunger are the two foremost concerns of all the developing and underdeveloped nations and in order to eradicate the menace of those, Govt. of India planned to develop and implement strategies to tackle issues resulting from extremity of poverty and its consequent hunger based on UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Self Help Group (SHG), being one of those strategies brought about a reduction in poverty and hunger after linking rural banks. This endeavor has positively mobilized the rural economy by decreasing poverty hurdles of socio-economically deprived section of the society. This paper highlights here the importance of such groups in the district of Birbhum in the state of West Bengal, India and seeks to spread this innovative programme at each and every corner of the underdeveloped and developing countries with utmost care considering it as exclusive strategy of poverty eradication.
... The SHG model which stands for Self-Help-Group model. SHGs are "membership-based organizations", i.e. organizations whose members provide each other with mutual support while attempting to achieve collective objectives through community action (Chen, Jhabvala et al. 2007) [20]. They usually consist of 10 to 20 women from socially and economically homogeneous backgrounds, 288 Women's Farming Collectives: An Inquiry into the Resource Sharing Patterns across 3 Districts of Maharashtra to Provide Evidence for Sustainable Environmental Collective Action poor backgrounds, and these groups are centred around savings, accessing institutional credit and on a productive activity, a means of livelihood which will enable with securing livelihood options for themselves. ...
... In rural Africa, membership-based rural producer organizations (RPOs) like cooperatives, peasant associations and unions are believed to be the chief strategies through which nations can ease rural poverty (Chen et al. 2006;World Bank 2007). Particularly, agricultural cooperatives can help smallholders achieve economies of scale in input provision and output marketing (Collion and Rondot 1998;Berdegue 2001;World Bank 2003). ...
Article
Full-text available
This study attempts to analyse the impact of cooperatives on the smallholders’ income, productivity, marketed surplus and saving in East Hararghe Zone of Haramaya District. The study is based on primary cross-sectional data collected from cooperative member and non-cooperative member household heads. The propensity score matching (PSM) estimates complemented by a bias correction matching (BCM) and Lewbel instrumental variable (IV) regression estimation shows that cooperatives have a positive impact on smallholders’ income and productivity. The findings have strong policy implications. The rural development of the country should work toward strengthening and expanding the existing rural organizations through training and capacity building programmes. It is important particularly establishing new rural-based organizations that enable rural households to engage in business activities. Doing that may help reduce poverty and increase smallholders’ income, productivity, and capital accumulation.
... The NRLM seeks to create and empower Self-Help Groups (SHGs). SHGs are 'membership-based organisations', that is, organisations whose members provide each other with mutual support while attempting to achieve collective objectives through community action (Chen, Renana, Kanbur, & Richards, 2008). A typical Indian SHG consists of between 7 and 12 poor women who meet once a month to pool savings and discuss issues of mutual importance. ...
Article
Full-text available
It is widely acknowledged that top-down support is essential for bottom-up participatory projects to be effectively implemented at scale. However, which level of government, national or sub-national, should be given the responsibility to implement such projects is an open question, with wide variations in practice. This paper analyses qualitative and quantitative data from a natural experiment of a large participatory project in the state of Rajasthan in India comparing central management and state-level management. We find that locally managed facilitators formed groups that were more likely to engage in collective action and be politically active, with higher savings and greater access to subsidised loans.
... The NRLM seeks to create and empower Self-Help Groups (SHGs). SHGs are "membership-based organizations", i.e., organizations whose members provide each other with mutual support while attempting to achieve collective objectives through community action (Chen et al. 2008). A typical Indian SHG consists of 7-12 poor women from similar socioeconomic backgrounds who meet once a month to pool savings and discuss issues of mutual importance. ...
... Les organisations communautaires de base (OCB) sont organisations qui sont à la portée des membres de la population locale où elles sont insérées. En effet, les pauvres créent des organisations qui sont très diversifiées selon les besoins ressentis par les membres de la localité (Chen et al., 2007). Il est important de souligner que les OCB existent dans les pays riches et pauvres mais la littérature est plus abondante pour les OCB des pays pauvres puisque les facteurs qui engendrent leur création sont plus nombreux là où la population se sent inconfortable. ...
... Challenges can include having the capacity to manage complex operations, maintaining a strong code of conduct, and sustaining the engagement of members. Externally, it helps to have supportive community power structures, an enabling legal, political and policy environment, external funding and support from external organisations such as NGOs, and sympathetic individuals in the bureaucracy and government (Chen et al., 2006). However, federations may be precisely trying to achieve a favourable change in the attitudes of the government. ...
Thesis
Full-text available
This study applies the concept of social capital to participatory slum upgrading, specifically the Baan Mankong (“secure housing”) programme in Bangkok. The Baan Mankong programme uses community participation to meet the housing needs of the urban poor, with financial assistance from the state. Since starting in 2003, the programme has drawn international praise, and is being scaled-up nationally, yet few studies have examined its social and institutional outcomes, focusing rather on the physical outputs. This study tries to fill this gap: as a programme that aims to be about “more than just houses”, attention needs to be paid to its impacts on both horizontal and vertical associations to determine whether it really offers an increased role for the urban poor in governance. A qualitative approach was taken, using semi-structured interviews, participant observation and discussion groups in four case-study communities. The analysis is structured on three levels: intra-community ties, inter-community ties, and state-community linkages, representing bonding, bridging and linking social capital respectively. At the level of intra-community relations, the study finds that upgrading had positive but temporary effects on collective action. Community leadership can be a uniting or dividing force, determining whether collective activities are sustained. Slum networks, representing inter-community relations, are essential for scaling-up upgrading through learning-by-doing. There is scope for cooperation between different networks for unity in negotiations with the state. With regard to community-state linkages, bureaucracy can still be a barrier to effective cooperation, and trust in officials remains low. This study focuses on those at the core of the upgrading process, and offers suggestions for ensuring that collective action provides the best results for both the urban poor and the state. Social capital is a valuable resource for the poor, when the formation of horizontal and vertical associations is actively promoted. As participatory development becomes the new paradigm and the poor increasingly take the initiative in ensuring their needs are met, a fuller understanding of Thailand’s experiences can help shape housing and community development policies elsewhere.
... Membership-based popular organisations can often respond better to the needs of civil society because they are financed by members, and are almost exclusively accountable to their membership [20, p. 26], [88]. Because MBOs are primarily accountable to local supporters, they have less pressure to remain political neutral or to satisfy the interests of public donors [27]. ...
Technical Report
Full-text available
This paper examines ways that modern donor practices may challenge international volunteer cooperation organizations' (IVCOs) alignment with the interests of civil society in partner countries—particularly in circumstances where a strong focus on service delivery and poverty eradication limit support for grassroots movements aimed at transformational structural and social change. This thesis is presented within a wider context of IVCOs’ historic development beginning in the late 1950s. Discussion and recommendations focus on how modern IVCOs can balance donor priorities while maintaining alignment with the sometimes oppositional role of civil society as a transformational driver of social change.
... Research on community- based initiatives shows that "informal methods of control and management reduce the credibility of leaders as representa- tives" of the poor. 9 And the committees' scant institutional development has hindered their sustainability amidst the recurrent violence of post-revolution Egypt. Several popular committee founders were among the 12,000 detainees facing military tribunals in the aftermath of the uprising. ...
Article
Full-text available
D uring the 18-day uprising of 2011, police disappeared from the streets of Cairo and other Egyptian cities at the same time that the state emptied the prisons of thousands of convicts. Neighborhood watch brigades, typically led by young men, sprang up to fill the security void as reports of criminal violence mounted. Face to face, or via Facebook, these "popular committees" quickly organized themselves and spread beyond urban centers, driven by the imperative of community defense. In the words of one committee founder: "Committees were everywhere in villages and cities. They became the heartbeat of Egyptian society—locally rooted and flexibly organized, Asya El-Meehy is officer of governance and public administration at United Nations-ESCWA. This article is based on fieldwork in the Basatin and Heliopolis neighborhoods of Cairo, as well as the towns of Kafr al-Sheikh and Qina. Funding for research was provided by Arizona State University's New College, where the author has previously served as Assistant Professor of Comparative Politics. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the official positions of ESCWA. Salafis distribute cooking gas at reduced prices in the Cairo neighborhood of Talbiyya, June 10, 2011.
... One such mechanism is the membership-based rural producer organization (World Bank 2007;Chen et al. 2006). Governments, donors, and rural development practitioners expect that membership-based RPOs can help smallholders overcome marketing constraints and contribute to improvements in their well-being and livelihoods (World Bank 2003;Berdegué 2001;Collion and Rondot 1998). ...
... Street vendors were sampled along two variables in each city, sex and location, where location was dichotomized into centre-city and 1 The term "membership-based organizations" (MBOs) in this report refers to those representing informal workers. Informal workers' MBOs are a subset of the broader category membership-based organizations of the poor, which are broadly defined as organizations whose governance structures respond to the needs and aspirations of the poor because they are accountable to their members (Chen et al. 2007). 2 The qualitative methodology was developed collaboratively with Caroline Moser, Angélica Acosta, and Irene Vance, who designed the tools and trained the city teams in data collection methods and data analysis. ...
Technical Report
Full-text available
Sally Roever is WIEGO's Urban Research Director. Based in Washington, DC, she holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California at Berkeley (2005) with specializations in research design and comparative politics. She is presently the Director of the Informal Economy Monitoring Study (IEMS) and sits on WIEGO committees for research, law and informality, and focal cities.
... This paper aims to restructure the informal institutions' debate by arguing that the social economic landscape in which formal and informal institutions operate in Africa is more complex and does not always render itself to bandit economies or violent conflict. There are many informal social relations and associations carrying out positive actions for society, like the Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA) of India 5 and other organizations documented by Chen et al. (2006), the activities documented by Medina (1997) with regard to Latin America scavengers, or the Mohammad Yunus's trust-based microfinance organizations in Bangladesh. The informal social relations and associations analysed in this paper play multiple roles, such as providing services and clamouring for social justice, as well as being avenues for mobilizing social finance and regulating members' behaviour. ...
Article
One way to improve gig work may be to strengthen worker voice via worker organisations. But organising gig workers under economic strain is difficult. In this article, I apply the power resources approach to two related but divergent cases of digital driver mobilisation—Mombasa and Nairobi—to demonstrate the relationship between the cultivation of internal and external legitimacy and the implications each has for different types of power. In Mombasa, association leaders mobilised a majority of local drivers and built internal legitimacy through geographic zone groups, direct communications and democratic norms. This legitimacy enabled them to use structural power, taking direct action against app companies. Unable to build internal legitimacy, Nairobi association leaders instead cultivated external legitimacy through media and politician appeals, using political power to press for regulation. However, workers contested representation by these leaders, raising questions about whether relying solely on external legitimacy increases effective worker voice.
Article
Full-text available
Agricultural cooperatives are considered as an institutional instrument for supporting smallholder farmers and contributing to poverty alleviation and food security. However, empirical literature and practices on the ground are mixed and inconclusive. The main purpose of this study is, therefore, to analyze the impact of agricultural cooperatives on households’ food security status in the context of Halu Woreda. The study employed a quasi-experimental research design to estimate the impact of such collective organizations on food security. Primary data were collected from 260 rural households drawn via a stratified random sampling technique. A variety of impact estimation models were employed to check the robustness of the results. The findings revealed that being a cooperative member is determined by a combination of factors, including the sex and age of the household head; access to farm inputs, credit, and training; and the welfare status of the household head. The findings also showed that agricultural cooperatives have a statistically significant positive impact on the food security status of households. It is concluded that agricultural cooperatives are effective in improving the food security status of the households in the study area. Therefore, regional rural development policy and strategy should focus on strengthening and genuinely supporting the existing agricultural cooperatives while encouraging the establishment of new ones through an inclusive approach in ways that directly address poverty and food insecurity. By highlighting the implications of the impact of agricultural cooperatives on food security, this article contributes to the ongoing debates on the potential benefits of such associations to farmers’ livelihoods in rural areas.
Chapter
The crisis of COVID-19 has resulted in pharmaceutical organizations moving towards new communication strategies with some launching new business models to survive and reach their target audience that in turn were layered onto, and dramatically accelerated, long-standing trends such as digitization and sustainability. In many ways, the changes in healthcare professionals and patient behavior are an acceleration of digital trends that were in motion before the pandemic hit. Pharma companies are experiencing a wave of innovations in the way they engage with their target audiences from new treatment modalities (home based) to smart machines, advanced analytics, and digital connectivity. The latest technologies and digital can make communication better, faster, more agile, more reliable, more compliant, and more efficient. Pharma companies can transform the way they communicate to deliver more efficient and efficacious communication in a cost-efficient way. The strategy is changing from a tell-and-sell model to a partner-and-solve model.
Article
Résumé L'auteur présente ici l'un des numéros de la Revue internationale du Travail publiés à l'occasion du 100e anniversaire de celle-ci. Ce numéro rassemble dix articles publiés dans la Revue entre 1975 et 2016 et consacrés exclusivement à l'analyse de l'informalité. L'auteur commence par tracer le cadre analytique, avec les origines de la notion d'informalité, puis commente les articles de ce numéro du centenaire, en les situant dans la littérature sur le sujet par des références de portée illustrative plutôt qu'exhaustive. Il conclut en s'interrogeant sur ce que les prochaines décennies pourraient amener en termes d'analyse et d'apports politiques.
Article
Resumen Este artículo es una introducción al presente número monográfico sobre la informalidad, inscrito en la colección del centenario de la Revista Internacional del Trabajo (RIT). Se recogen aquí diez artículos dedicados exclusivamente al análisis de la informalidad, que aparecieron en la RIT entre 1975 y 2016. La introducción se inicia con un marco analítico, seguido de un examen de los orígenes del discurso de la informalidad y una lectura crítica de los artículos seleccionados en su contexto bibliográfico, a través de una serie de referencias ilustrativas, y concluye mirando al futuro, a lo que nos depararán los próximos decenios de análisis y discurso de políticas.
Article
This article presents a Centenary Issue on Informality to mark the 100th anniversary of the International Labour Review (ILR). The issue brings together ten articles published in the ILR between 1975 and 2016 that are devoted exclusively to the analysis of informality. This introduction begins with an analytical framework, considers the origins of the informality discourse and then discusses the articles in this Centenary Issue, locating them in the broader literature through illustrative rather than comprehensive referencing. It concludes by looking ahead to what the coming decades of analysis and policy discourse may bring.
Article
Full-text available
Collective organizing represents one way in which street and market vendors in urban sub-Saharan Africa advocate their interests and strive towards more inclusive urban policies. Several studies have shown both the opportunities vendors associations may have for vendors as well as their pitfalls. This paper contributes to this discussion by addressing how vendors have used the platforms of a national organization of vendors associations to develop support networks across space of importance for their daily work. Through conducting semi-structured interviews with vendors and vendor representatives in Zambia, this paper examines these connections that have emerged between individual vendors located in different urban areas in Zambia. The paper adopts an assemblage approach to show the work that is needed, and how different social and material aspects are involved in the production of these connections. The results indicate that vendors rely on these connections in their everyday lives to discuss challenges and solutions related to their working environments and to explore business opportunities, and that mobile phones contribute to these new emerging spaces for self-organization. Results are discussed through relating these assemblages of vendors to the spaces organized and managed by vendors associations.
Chapter
Globally, black and minoritized women are subjected to gender-based violence which is compounded by their intersecting oppressions based on gender, race, faith, caste, geographical location and more. In the context of the #MeToo movement, some women are left out of the conversation, silenced or self-censored due to fear of their entire ‘communities’ being judged. Notable by their absence, minoritized women’s experiences of violence, often characterized by the influence of state violence, structural racism and poverty, are seemingly not centered in the dominant definition of violence within this burgeoning movement. In this chapter, three black feminist practitioners ask what kinds of violence #MeToo is enabling women to call out. Presenting perspectives from different country contexts, the authors examine the ways in which structural responses fail minoritized women and ask what happens if and when minoritized women say #MeToo?
Article
Full-text available
This article discusses how global ideas on co-production and citizenship built from below are translated into community mobilization and participatory planning practices in urban Malawi. It shows how limited national and local resources, disconnections from national and urban policies of redistribution, and a local politics shaped by both clientelism and democratic reforms create a glass ceiling for what global models of community mobilization and participation are able to achieve. It calls for a more systematic and empirically diverse research agenda to better understand how participatory discourses and practices embedded in grassroots organizing are transferred and mediated in place.
Chapter
The elementary aim of microenterprises and Self Help Groups (SHGs) is to empower the impoverished populace, particularly of the rural areas, and furthermore provide financial sustainability so as to improve livelihoods. The pervasive twin threats of unemployment and exclusion from the financial framework in the rural areas are the major challenges to the economic and social development of India. A self-help group is a potent means to remove poverty in the same vein microenterprises contribute significantly to economic development and social stability by affording employment opportunities, thereby emerging as a vehicle through which low-income people can escape poverty. SHGs and microenterprises are a significant means for socioeconomic transformation through financial inclusion. The objective of the chapter is to study and analyze the impact of microenterprises and SHGs on the financial inclusion of people in rural areas of Tribal South Rajasthan.
Article
Informal workers play a central role in the global value chain along which electronic waste (e-waste) is collected and recycled. The failure of governments to recognize informal e-waste workers as legitimate stakeholders in the e-waste economy means these workers assume acute health and livelihood risks. This article argues that the exclusionary dynamics of contemporary e-waste governance paradigms, in failing to acknowledge the legal identity of some stakeholders and the legal responsibilities of others, contribute to a grossly imbalanced and environmentally unjust globalization of e-waste marked by the proliferation of dangerous and exploitative forms of work. E-waste legislation must embrace and reflect the needs and interests of marginalized social groups whose livelihoods depend on their participation in the urban waste economy. Waste governance paradigms must recognize informal workers’ claims over urban space and resources, in other words, their spatial citizenship and fundamental place as workers within the global hi-tech economy.
Technical Report
Full-text available
Organising, representing and involving into social dialogue mechanisms undeclared workers, workers with non-standard contracts or more generally hard-to-organise workers (HOW), poses considerable challenges for social partners and governments all around the world. But at the same time, the representation of the rapidly increasing numbers of such workers is necessary in order to achieve an inclusive and socially sustainable growth. The organisational, institutional and socio-economic context in each particular country determines the type and intensity of problems encountered by social partners in organising these groups of workers. The analysis of cases of organisation and involvement of workers with non-standard contracts or in the informal economy reveals a wide variety of strategies, mechanisms and actors involved. The differences observed relate to the particular sector, occupation, type of contract or group involved, but they are also explained by the institutional and socio-political context. The analysis of successful organising and representation experiences in countries with labour markets and/or industrial relations institutions sharing some similarities to those in Turkey, provides some important insights on the policies and strategies necessary to achieve this goal. The main points coming out from the analysis of existing work and practices on HOW organising strategies can be summarised as follows: - First, the success of HOW organising strategies is context-specific and requires tailored approaches by social partners and governments. Not only similar groups of workers may face different problems depending on the country, but trade unions may also have different organisational characteristics and power resources that will determine the success of organising policies. The diversity of strategies developed by trade unions shows the importance of adapting the principles underlying the organising model to the conditions prevailing in each country. Particularly relevant in this regard is the need to adapt trade union strategies to the characteristics of workers in order to meet their diverse needs and expectations. - Trade unions efforts at organising HOWs are just one element in order to improve the labour market position of HOWs. In many cases, a minimum floor of rights and / or protection granted by state through adequate regulation and effective enforcement is required in order to guarantee the success of organising strategies and the effective protection of these groups of workers. Some of these regulations include the right to organise collectively or the right to be represented and to be eligible for workplace representation structures. - One of the most rapidly growing groups of HOWs are (bogus) self-employed, freelancers, crowd workers and independent workers. New technologies, together with neo-liberal discourse and policies, allow for new forms of enterprise organisation that are very often mere contact points between companies and workers or between suppliers and consumers. Workers involved in some of these activities are characterised by medium-high skills, hence departing from the traditional low skilled character of undeclared workers, or non-standard workers more generally. However, there are also many examples of platform-based companies that rely on low-skilled labour like Uber, Deliveroo etc. In spite of a more individualist approach towards the labour market and a fragmented employment relationship, often providing services and working simultaneously for several employers, organising strategies in some countries have been successful in organising these groups. This shows how in spite of growing individualisation, organising remains possible whenever trade unions or any other organisation are capable of highlighting their common challenges and the need for collective action. - Except for trade unions in liberal industrial relations systems, trade unions in most European continental and Latin American countries have struggled to adapt their structures and strategies to involve and organise non-standard workers. Even though the adoption of inclusive strategies has now become widespread, significant differences persist in the extension and success of organising strategies. These differences relate to three inter-related factors: the institutional setting, power resources of trade unions and their organisational structures. - In order to overcome the obstacles facing trade unions in organising undeclared workers and workers with non-standard contracts, some strategies come out from the analysis as particularly relevant for the case of Turkey: o First, developing new power resources. More specifically, one of the power resources that has proved to be particularly important in organising is the so-called collaborative or coalitional. In particular, the cases analysed in this report make clear the need of trade unions to collaborate with other actors, including worker cooperatives and NGOs. Alliances with other non-union organisations have proved to be very helpful in those contexts where trade unions have difficult access to employees (the case of SMEs or the informal sector). This is particularly important in the case of informal workers’ organisations. o Second, organising is more likely to succeed in organisational contexts where trade unions have de-centralised structures and decision-making processes. In those institutional settings where trade union structures remain centralised, the activation of grass-roots required in order to implement successful organising strategies will be more difficult. De-centralisation allows the development of a more variegated approach towards organising, depending on the type of workers, sector, workplaces etc. o Third, organising requires financial and organisational resources. These resources are particularly important in contexts where collective bargaining coverage is low or trade union representation structures are lacking in many workplaces. Two types of resources are particularly important for successful organising. First, dedicated organisations within trade unions that will provide assistance to develop campaigns and policies. Second, it is necessary to provide specific training to those groups of workers that will be leading the organising campaigns. Moreover, the cases presented show a complementarity between targeted service provision and organising strategies; organising efforts become more effective when unions / organisations provide targeted services to vulnerable workers. o Fourth, awareness raising campaigns on the conditions facing undeclared and non-standard workers are a pre-condition for successful organising for two reasons. First, they may increase public pressure on governments to regulate the conditions of a certain group of workers, hence facilitating their organisation and involvement in social dialogue. Second, these campaigns facilitate the creation and consolidation of shared identities and collective action. o Fifth, the increasing fragmentation and diversity of organisations, recommends in some cases to move beyond the workplace in order to develop adequate organising strategies. Even though the workplace remains an important space for union recruitment strategies, reaching non-standard and undeclared workers requires very often the adoption of local-based approaches as the attachment of non-standard and undeclared workers to a single employer is weaker than for workers under the standard employment relationship or in the formal economy. This is particularly important in a context of growing sub-contracting and outsourcing of activities.
Book
Full-text available
Experiences of organising among informal workers. Information, practical ideas, successful strategies and resources for organisers, based on experiences of domestic workers, home-based workers, street/market vendors and waste pickers.
Article
Organizational capacity is often discussed among nonprofit practitioners and scholars. Yet, empirical research employing a multidimensional capacity framework remains scarce in the nonprofit literature (Andersson et al. in VOLUNTAS Int J Volunt Nonprofit Organ 27(6):2860–2888, 2016). Using a qualitative research approach, we explored capacity in a specific segment of youth development nonprofits—sport for development and peace (SDP). We were guided by three research questions: (1) what are critical capacity elements of SDP nonprofits? (2) how do these capacity elements influence the ability of SDP nonprofits to achieve their desired goals and objectives? and (3) what are the capacity needs of SDP nonprofits in the USA? Findings from in-depth interviews with leaders of 29 organizations contribute to the development of theory on nonprofit capacity by providing a more nuanced understanding of capacity strengths and challenges related to broader nonprofit goal achievement. For example, paid staff, revenue generation, and internal infrastructure emerged as critically more important for capacity in this context. Practical and theoretical implications are further discussed.
Chapter
The industrial relations (IR) framework in India is centred around the formal industrial employment model wherein employees bargain and negotiate with their employer through their trade union(s) and the government plays a significant mediatory role. This legally arranged framework of IR excludes informal workers, who are normally not engaged in a workplace-based industrial employment, from its purview. Such an orientation has led trade unions enjoying legislative safeguard to primarily organize industrial employees on the basis of their workplace engagement. The narrow trade union focus on industrial employment has left informal workers’ concerns largely unrepresented in traditional IR. In this backdrop, while concerns of deteriorating worker power because of declining trade union membership and influence occupies IR scholars, informal workers innovative organizing strategies and resultant worker power remains largely unnoticed. In this chapter, I conceptualize this subtler source of worker power that has been gaining strength in India. I conceptualize the power generation capacity of what I term as workers’ aggregations. In the workers’ aggregation variety of collective action, unlike trade unions, power is per se not dependent on the numerical strength of the workers’ organization; power emanates from the diffused range of functions and relations that these workers’ aggregations undertake and sustain. In this chapter, I argue that the future of effective and sustainable IR in India lies in taking cognizance of these organizations and their modus operandi, while also recognizing the changing nature of bargaining (involving mainly the state) in economic relations.
Article
This paper focuses on the cooperative sector in central Mongolia. Its aim is to provide new insights into the role and importance of cooperatives among poor rural populations. We analyse cooperatives’ inclusiveness of smaller herders and farmers and cooperatives’ governance structures. The research is based on data collected in selected provinces of the central Töv region. The data were collected for three distinctive target groups – cooperative board members, cooperative members and non-members. We found that the cooperative sector in Mongolia is strongly affected by the governmental policy regarding wool subsidies, which provides subsidies only to cooperative members and has consequently caused rapid growth in the number of new, free-riding cooperative members and led to very low levels of members’ self-identification with their cooperatives. This policy also affects the inner organizational structures of cooperatives. Further, we found indications that poorer farmers tend not to be members of cooperatives and that the overall benefits for non-members and the general community arising from local cooperatives are rather low.
Article
Full-text available
Flouting 150 years of reports on their political impotence, millions of informal workers have recently begun mobilizing for labor rights. What provoked this unexpected development? This article analyzes the Colombian informal recycler movement - a "least likely" case for successful mobilization due to the recyclers' extreme marginality and the Colombian state's violent repression of labor movements. The article argues that the rise of neoliberalism and the consolidation of democracy created political opportunities that conventional perspectives on the informal economy would not lead us to expect. Three specific links connected these macro-level transformations to increases in the recyclers' collective organizing capacity. First, technical, financial, and symbolic backing from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) enabled recyclers to develop innovative organizing models. Second, new human rights provisions contained in the Constitution of 1991 created an opening to challenge state policy. Third, the privatization of waste management spurred recyclers to action by leaving them with two clear-cut possibilities: waste corporations might permanently displace them, or recyclers might collectively organize to protect and improve their livelihoods. © 2016 The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. All rights reserved.
Article
In this paper we analyze the inclusiveness of smaller herders in cooperatives in central region of Mongolia. We have collected data for selected soums of this region, and provided evidence and further explanations for our results. We have found that cooperative sector in Mongolia is strongly affected by state policy of wool subsidies, potentially leading to very low levels of members’ self-identification with the cooperative. Further, we have found suggestions that poorer herdsmen tend not to be members of cooperatives and overall benefits for non-members and general community arising from local cooperatives are rather low.
Article
This paper looks at the use of economic and social ‘evidence’ in debates on microfinance. Microfinance was originally inspired by small-scale women's savings and credit organisations. When its potential to become a financially sustainable, even profit-making, development intervention was recognised, microfinance underwent a ‘revolution’ that was to convert it into a much lauded development ‘panacea’. Microfinance's reputation has, however, been tarnished by reports refuting the evidential basis for claims made on its behalf. We trace the intervention's ascendance and the evidential basis on which microfinance was promoted. We argue, firstly, that the exclusion of qualitative evidence was not an epistemological imperative, but a political choice, and, secondly, that the large-scale quantitative evidence that did support the scaling up of microfinance was inadequate in terms of methodological rigour. In concluding, we place the example of microfinance within wider debates on evidence in development and argue that evidence can never be apolitical.
Article
Cooperatives are important organizational forms helping millions of people, particularly in rural areas, to improve their socio-economic conditions. They are also unique in that they are member-centric business organizations with democratic control, where the shareholders are also users of their services. In this article, first, I discuss the importance of cooperatives as organizational forms, particularly the rural producers’ cooperatives (RPCs); second, analyze the research trends within the organizational behaviour (OB) area in the last one-and-half decade on RPCs; third, chart out directions for future research. The analysis suggests that cooperatives as organizational forms throw up special challenges to the OB researchers, as they are special types of organizations that incorporate business-like features of the investor-owned firms as well as the voluntary nature of nonprofits, thereby increasing the complexity of the context to make it an interesting area of research. For future research, OB researchers will have to go beyond the employee-centric research to include cooperative members as important constituent of the organization, specifically focussing on trust, commitment, organizational citizenship behaviour and leadership behaviour. The article identifies certain roadblocks in getting the attention of the researchers in the OB area and suggests certain ways to overcome these roadblocks.
Article
Full-text available
In response to the problems of high coordination costs among the poor, efforts are underway in many countries to organize the poor through “self-help groups” (SHGs)—membership-based organizations that aim to promote social cohesion through a mixture of education, access to finance, and linkages to wider development programs. We randomly selected villages in one of the poorest districts in rural India in which to establish SHGs for women. Two years of exposure to these programs increased women's participation in group savings programs as well as the non-agricultural labor force. Compared to women in control villages, treated women were also more likely to participate in household decisions and engage in civic activities. We find no evidence however, that participation increased income or had a disproportionate impact on women's socio-economic status. These results are important in light of the recent effort to expand official support to SHGs under India's National Rural Livelihood Mission.
Article
This paper discusses the evolution of community-building in conflict-prone Kosovo. While analyzing the application of a general concept of community-building in a concrete multi-ethnic setting, current needs and prerequisites for multi-ethnic community development are discussed and a set of policy recommendations is proposed. Community-building usually refers to a participative process of responding to local challenges through organizing and strengthening social connections and building common values. However, to understand that process in a multi-ethnic setting within the context of ongoing decentralization in Kosovo, the issue of civil and ethnic identity and identity-related perceptions and values are considered as well.
Article
Full-text available
Executive Summary The rural poor in developing countries are often at a competitive disadvantage in the wider economy because of deep and persistent market, state and institutional failures. However, there is growing evidence to suggest that membership-based rural producer organizations (RPOs) can help small-scale, resource-poor farmer to overcome these failures, participate more actively in the economy, and benefits from processes of growth and development. Policies and programs designed in recognition of this potential have succeeded in many parts of Asia, and have contributed significantly to reducing food insecurity and rural poverty, while also stimulating agricultural development and wider economic growth. These issues are particularly relevant in Ethiopia, a country where food insecurity and rural poverty persist despite a range of forward-looking policies and investments in the agricultural sector. Indeed, Ethiopia represents one of the world's greatest challenges in terms of agricultural development and economic growth. The country's agricultural sector accounts for about 40 percent of national GDP, 90 percent of exports, 85 percent of employment, and 90 percent of the poor. Yet 37 percent of its farming households cultivate less than 0.5 hectares, 87 percent cultivate less than 2 hectares, and just 28 percent of total agricultural output is commercialized. Marginal productivity of rural labor is estimated at close to zero, while rural access to rural infrastructure such as roads, water, and electricity is extremely limited. Over the 15 years, the Government of Ethiopia has embarked on an ambitious plan to promote farmers' cooperatives throughout the country. The plan aims to extend cooperative services throughout the country to supply production inputs to smallholders and market surplus output from smallholders. What remains to be seen is whether the implementation of this plan is contributing to the improvement of rural livelihoods in the country.
Article
Organized labour, once considered to be a key component of democratically managed political systems, was dismissed as a hindrance to economic and political modernization in the neo-liberal economy. As the size and influence of organized formal sector labour diminishes, this paper examines how unionization as an institutional form of labour organization is gaining popularity among informal workers in newly industrializing nations. Counteracting the impression that this unionization is outdated; the paper looks at this return of unionization and its significance for planners and concludes that this trend calls for more, not less planning, albeit of a different kind than used earlier for state-led industrialization.
Article
This paper considers community-based adaptation (CBA) to climate change and its relationship to the theory and practice of participatory development. It is argued that CBA needs to recognise the considered experience of participatory development to date, particularly in relation to local involvement in project planning and implementation, as well as acknowledging the specific challenges raised by climate change. Without attention to risks and uncertainty, political structures and institutions, the necessarily multi-level nature of adaptation policy and programming, and the links between mitigation and adaptation politics and practice, outcomes of CBA interventions are unlikely to support pro-poor development. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.