En 2011, Fatoumata Cissoko, jeune femme vivant en Guinée et diplômée en comptabilité, a lancé sa société de transformation de fruits secs avec 260 USD. Elle produit environ 16 tonnes d’ananas séché par an vendu dans de nombreux magasins et supermarchés de la capitale, Conakry, et d’autres villes du pays. Récemment, sa société a considérablement accru sa capacité de production pour améliorer sa compétitivité sur les marchés régionaux et internationaux. Fatoumata a également ouvert un restaurant bio pour compléter la chaîne de production et elle emploie directement 15 femmes. L’histoire de Fatoumata est un exemple des nombreuses opportunités d’emploi émergentes dans les systèmes alimentaires d’Afrique de l’Ouest.
Dans la période difficile que nous traversons, un défi majeur se présente à nous : l’impact de la crise du COVID-19 sur les entreprises. Le Coronavirus marque le retour des frontières dans le monde. La tentation du repli national est forte. Et la Suisse n’y échappe pas. Pendant plusieurs semaines, nos frontières, terrestres et aériennes, ont été fermées. Cependant, avec plus de 30 000 frontaliers français travaillant dans le domaine de la santé en Suisse, il s’agit justement de l’ouverture de notre marché du travail qui s’est révélée être un atout précieux. En cette période de crise sanitaire, que feraient nos hôpitaux et nos cliniques sans cette main-d’œuvre?
In 2011, Fatoumata Cissoko, a graduate in accounting and a young woman living in Guinea, launched her dried-fruit processing company with USD 260. Her company produces about 16 tonnes of dried pineapple a year sold in many shops and supermarkets in the capital, Conakry, and other cities around the country. Recently, her company increased its production capacity substantially to improve its competitiveness in regional and international markets. Fatoumata also opened an organic restaurant to complete the production chain and she directly employs 15 women. The story of Fatoumata is one example of the many emerging job opportunities in West Africa’s food systems.
By Jorge Arbache, Private Sector Vice-President, Development Bank of Latin America (CAF)
This blog is part of a series on tackling COVID-19 in developing countries. Visit the OECD dedicated page to access the OECD’s data, analysis and recommendations on the health, economic, financial and societal impacts of COVID-19 worldwide.
Vendor in Quito, Ecuador. Photo: teranbryan_ecu/Shutterstock
Statistics show that economic growth in Latin America is highly volatile, with periods of acceleration and collapse. This dynamic hides perverse implications. The combination of low growth persistence with high-growth volatility is associated with greater risk aversion, which in turn encourages financial speculation and firms to invest in lower risk, but also lower social return projects. Additionally, poverty and other social indicators are also very sensitive to the harmful combination of short growth spells and high volatility. Continue reading “COVID-19 in Latin America: Promoting entrepreneurship and reducing social vulnerabilities”
By José Manuel Salazar Xirinachs, Former Regional Director of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) for Latin America and the Caribbean, and former Minister of Foreign Trade of Costa Rica
This blog is part of a series on tackling COVID-19 in developing countries. Visit the OECD dedicated page to access the OECD’s data, analysis and recommendations on the health, economic, financial and societal impacts of COVID-19 worldwide.
Lima, Peru – April 7, 2020. Photo: Shutterstock
The damage of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing global lockdown crisis will be devastating, causing the worst disruption to labour markets in Latin America since the Great Depression. Up to 43 million people – probably more – could be unemployed in 2020. Tragically, the state of labour markets in the region was bad even before the crisis. Repairing the damage while addressing past structural legacies is possible, but it will be slow and challenging, and will require something most countries in the region have not done well in the past: a massive focus on microeconomic policies for accelerated productive transformation, and technological and human talent development.
By Laura Alfers,Director, Social Protection Programme, WIEGO, Rachel Moussié, Deputy Director, Social Protection Programme, WIEGO and Jenna Harvey, Global Focal Cities Coordinator, WIEGO
This blog is part of a series on tackling COVID-19 in developing countries. Visit the OECD dedicated page to access the OECD’s data, analysis and recommendations on the health, economic, financial and societal impacts of COVID-19 worldwide.
Photo: Shutterstock
Income recovery in the informal economy will require broad and longer-term support
Juana Corman wakes at 2:00 a.m., as she has for decades, to travel across town to the distribution centre where she picks up stacks of newspapers to sell. Normally, she would sell from her dedicated kiosk to pedestrians on Lima’s busy streets, but under Peru’s mandatory stay-at-home order, her work has changed. Now, she sells the daily paper house-to-house – delivering critical information to a city on edge. In one respect, Juana Corman is more fortunate than many other informal workers in the city – as an essential worker she is able to continue working. However, selling door to door has meant a significant reduction in earnings at the same time as her costs have increased due to limited public transport and the need to purchase protective equipment. Continue reading “The COVID-19 crisis: income support to informal workers is necessary and possible”
By Anders Gerdin, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), and Alexandre Kolev, Head of the Social Cohesion Unit, OECD Development Centre
This blog is part of a series on tackling COVID-19 in developing countries. Visit the OECD dedicated page to access the OECD’s data, analysis and recommendations on the health, economic, financial and societal impacts of COVID-19 worldwide.
Local market in Antipolo City, Philippines, during the coronavirus outbreak. Photo: Shutterstock
The outbreak and spread of COVID-19 is having and will have a disproportionate impact on informal economy workers across the world, especially in developing countries, where they represent about 70% of the workforce. Many of these informal economy workers are poor and most lack labour, social and health protection. As they often simply cannot implement social distancing, they are particularly exposed and vulnerable to the pandemic. In turn, entire economic sectors, of which informal workers are a mainstay, could collapse. The food economy is a case in point. The combination of border closures and the likely shortages of informal workers due to confinement measures may put food security at risk. Urgent policy action is needed to protect these workers and recognise their value as essential service providers. Continue reading “Why protecting informal economy workers is so critical in time of COVID-19”
By Funda Ustek-Spilda, Mark Graham, Alessio Bertolini, Srujana Katta, Fabian Ferrari and Kelle Howson – A coalition of researchers at Fairwork – an organisation which studies the work practices and working conditions in the emerging gig economy. Fairwork is based at the Oxford Internet Institute.
This blog is part of a series on tackling COVID-19 in developing countries. Visit the OECD dedicated page to access the OECD’s data, analysis and recommendations on the health, economic, financial and societal impacts of COVID-19 worldwide.
Nevertheless, due to the nature of their jobs, gig workers have been identified as the highest risk group as they cannot always ensure keeping a 2 m social distance from their customers. Also, our interviews show that many gig workers live hand to mouth, and they just cannot afford to take time off, whether there is a public health crisis or not. Moreover, some workers have leases and other upfront payments that they have committed to make to the platforms they work for, and they are simply unable to hold off work until they raise what they owe. It is worth noting that the gig economy also relies on workers in developing countries where overall most workers are informal and very often lack safety nets and other forms of protection. In brief, Covid-19 has brought to light a major inequality in the way platform economies are set up: gig workers provide for the key needs of society, yet they do not have access to fair working conditions. Continue reading “From Social Distancing to Social Solidarity: Gig economy and the Covid-19”
Youth employment and job creation loom high on development agendas in West Africa. The issue is also a priority at the continental and international levels: decent work and youth empowerment are priority areas within the African Union’s Agenda 2063, and ‘youth and jobs in the Sahel’ will figure prominently amongst talks at the G7 Summit which begins this Saturday in Biarritz.
Such policy focus is necessary in view of the demographic realities in the region. Although unemployment is low overall, informality remains prevalent, and growing numbers of young people struggle to access attractive training or sources of income. West African economies need to create more and better jobs. Yet, from a policy perspective, how to support decent and inclusive job creation is not always clear. Trade-offs in public resource allocations across sectors and information gaps abound.
Social distancing and self-isolation are the policies du jour.