What are the safety and health conditions of workers in the informal economy in Asia?
Tsuyoshi Kawakami: Asia’s informal economy cuts across all economic sectors – agriculture, industry and services. They all need practical support measures to improve the safety and health problems they face. Workers and the self-employed often work in substandard conditions, being exposed to various hazards in the workplace without having appropriate safety and health training and information. As far as national labour laws are concerned, they do not always cover the informal economy. ILO Online: What are the immediate priorities for occupational safety and health (OSH) programmes? Tsuyoshi Kawakami: We need measures that are practical, easy-to-apply, and work at the local level. Just to give you an example: low-cost approaches based on good practices have overcome cost barriers in small workplaces in Asia and have also allowed the active participation of many workers, resulting in concrete improvements. We found that things that may appear obvious have actually helped us kick-start ou
