All new columns from 1.1.2018 on have been / will be published on the new website

The power of informal transport workers

Dave Spooner

Urban passenger transport in developing countries is dominated by the informal economy. Informal transport workplaces – bus terminals, taxi ranks, motorcycle taxi stands, and minibus parks – are major transport hubs of national economic and political importance.

Most of the world’s transport workers are informal. They face police harassment, criminal extortion, job insecurity, low incomes, discrimination, and no access to social security. Yet they provide essential services for millions across the world. In Asia and Africa most urban passenger transport is informal, employing many thousands of workers in a wide range of occupations. Women workers are the most precarious and low paid in the sector, facing discrimination, violence, sexual harassment and abuse. Informal work is now also widespread in the developed world with the proliferation of transport jobs in the ‘gig economy’.

Motorcycle taxis, couriers and delivery services are increasingly popular in congested cities. Huge numbers are involved. In Kampala, Uganda, for example, the authorities estimate there are 120 000 boda-boda (motorcycle) operators. In 2013 the boda-boda industry in Uganda was the second largest employer after agriculture, reported Standard Bank researchers (Nasasira, 2015).

But where are the workers? How the youth entrepreneur model fails in Africa

Pierre Girard

The figures are now well known: 375 million young people will reach working age in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2030, and for many their livelihoods will depend mainly on the rural economy (Losch, 2016). Facing the massive generation of activity required by these demographic dynamics, entrepreneurship has become the leitmotiv of many donors’ and NGOs’ programmes and projects, as well as public policies. According to them, the multiplication of entrepreneurs can meet the employment challenge in the African countryside.

Amidst the positive picture presented by the ‘Afro-optimism’ narratives that have emerged since the growth recovery of the 2000s and the proliferation of over-publicised success stories, entrepreneurship is scarcely criticised. In view of the above, it is essential to qualify the unrealistic expectations generated by the fantasy in which millions of rural youth would constitute a myriad of independent entrepreneurs on the continent. Not everyone will become an entrepreneur in this fantasy: the majority of young people will combine different employment statuses where relationships of economic dependence and subordination will be dominant. Therefore, it would be better to focus public policies on social protection than on entrepreneurship.

The slow death of Ecuadorian Banana workers

Magali Marega

Jo Vervecken

‘In reality, the work in the field implies a slow death, because it kills you inside’ says Luis, a 59 year old banana worker. ‘Paradoxically, it’s the only way of surviving but it kills you anyway.’[1]

This testimony comes from one of 30 in-depth interviews in Vitali’s (2015) study of work conditions and workers’ health in the banana-producing sector in Los Rios province of Ecuador.

Luis is one of 200 000 people working on banana plantations in Ecuador, the world’s leading banana exporter. The global banana supply chain is under a lot of pressure from food retailers, forcing down producers’ prices. Workers and the environment suffer the consequences. Rights violations create serious health risks for the banana workers.
One of the main health risks is daily exposure to pesticides. Aerial fumigation is done at any hour of the day. María describes: ‘They fumigate during lunchtime, also where we are eating. They force us to sign a paper stating that we agree with aerial fumigation and that we receive the necessary protection. If we don’t sign, we get into trouble.’

Redesigning the Euro area towards a social project

Hansjörg Herr

As shown in detail in the recent e-publication (Herr et al, 2017) linked below[1] all countries in the European Monetary Union (EMU) were severely hit by the Great Recession in 2008 and 2009. The initial recovery was relatively quick, but the Eurozone slid into a double-dip recession in 2012 and 2013. Since then there has been a slow recovery. Germany became one of the best performing countries in terms of GDP growth. Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain suffered massively from the crisis. Development in France also has been sluggish.

The lost decade for some of the EMU countries was caused by ill-advised policies. More fundamentally, the architecture of the EMU is not adequate to create a stable currency, in spite of some reforms after 2008, such as the steps towards banking union.

After the Great Recession, three polices were particularly damaging.