Giving Compass' Take:

• World Resources Institute reports on the need of cities in the global south to embrace the informal workers and support those who ply their own trades, citing a new study that shows their significant influence on local economies.

• Recommendations include expanding access to public services and spaces, while including informal workers in governance. Those working in urban development have some action items to follow.

• Here's an example of what can be done in this area: Women art workers in Argentina are demanding gender equality.

Informal workers represent 50 to 80 percent of urban employment in the global south — from street vendors and waste pickers, to workers manufacturing goods at home — and generate up to half of GDP outside of agriculture. Though cities need informal workers to be productive, most are either ambivalent or hostile towards them. The latest working paper in the World Resources Report, “Towards a More Equal City,” called “Including the Excluded,” reveals how cities in the global south can create policies, legislation and practices that support informal workers while promoting economic productivity and environmental sustainability.

The prospect of employment will continue to attract rural migrants to cities; however, there are not enough formal jobs in many cities to meet demand. Already the size of the informal economy is staggering: the percentage of informal workers in the urban workforce in Africa is 76 percent, 47 percent in Asia/Pacific, and 36 percent in the Americas. Cities have historically stigmatized informal workers as avoiding taxes and regulations, representing unfair competition to formal firms, appropriating public space, and creating congestion, unsanitary conditions, and public health risks. As a result, they are largely invisible. City officials rarely recognize the economic activity of informal workers as a livelihood strategy or as a contribution to the formal economy. But this can change.

Read the full article about calling on cities to integrate informal workers by Schuyler Null at World Resources Institute.