SOCIAL PROTECTION GROUP

Responses to the questions.

Advice given by Henrick

• Focus more on the global level but informed by lessons learnt from the local context; and scale it up.

• Grant would be managed at a global / national level. For smaller actions in country grants would be better suited.

Points I don’t know where to classify

• Baseline survey; Need for sound statistics on the informal sector; numbers, in urban/ rural, contribution to the country. Should be made public and used to design actions and identify advocacy issues.

Question 1• What are the possible options for obtaining decent living and working conditions without joining the formal

economy? – Individual level sustainability; Individual empowerment e.g. marketability of existing skills, training

in new skills, will be able to be self sufficient + increase self awareness of rights + train on ways of getting organized.

– Self empowerment could also include increased access to services, linking to skills development and income generating sources/ opportunities + individual follow up.

– Collective action based solutions; engage in social dialogue ; communities lobbying collectively for their needs with the local / national governments e.g in unions, cooperatives associations that can better represent community needs and provide social protective mechanisms for them e.g. tax relief, health insurance, share equipment and quality assurance and increase the ease of aggregating products to the market, mobilize greater savings, hold a more collective bargaining position, promote good values.

– Financial sustainability: Access to informal/ group oriented capital sources and investments (micro loans)

– Social dimension; ensure community integration and involvement in the processes from the beginning.

– Recognition and certification. – Affordable and appropriate services (health and education systems). – Establishing or building a legal framework.

• Then advocacy to national legal frameworks to recognize, regulate and protect groups of informal settlement workers. (per sector).

Question 2

• How could the multiplier and development effects of the projects be increased? – Linking to existing institutions e.g. local government.– Create new networks or link with current networks that

coordinate / harness the work that NGOs are doing, getting a sustained message to the right government dockets for change of legislations etc.

– Build up on lessons learned from previous projects from other organizations or from own projects.

– Link more strongly with private sector.– Link with populations/ groups with mainstream services as

opposed to creating specialized services for certain groups.

Question 3: Which are the lessons learned and the implications for the EC for future calls for proposals targeting the informal economy?

Lessons learnt• Linking actors at different levels e.g. government,

NGO and private sector. • Investment in people/ individuals through NGOs

and their partners.– Supplement bilateral funding.– NGOs have experience, have link to community that

state does not have. • Room for small scale and innovative project for

piloting; can undertake more experimental work.

Recommendations– Using a holistic approach to the calls.– Broader design that can be targeted. – Fund exploratory studies into the informal sector in a smaller scale

that will allow for a body of work that can demonstrate impact that can be scaled up.

– Encourage experience sharing e.g. study tours– Longer timeframes for the interventions where necessary for social

processes. – Funding for capacity building of local state government.– EC led coordination of collaboration / linking between EC funding

projects in the same region or country; could be worked into the program design during the proposal stage.

– Taking previous consideration of previous experience of the organization/ NGO when looking in the new call;• Add a section of previous experience and lessons learnt and their impact

on the program design.

Question 4• Identify project management constraints and best practices which can be shared

in order to improve the projects intended results. – Short program periods; funding could allow for longer program terms if required. – Difficulty to scale up projects in the absence of organized workers unions.– Constraints of working with a government that is non-existent.– Grant management; interpretation of rules by the Delegation differently by the local

delegation staff.– More funding or more flexibility for experts from Europe to travel for the provide technical

training, staff development, salary.– EC to reinforce financial requirements by promoting these lessons in country with lead and

partner agencies if possible. – Budget flexibility of more than 15% variation within budget lines.– Need to time to build capacity build locally as groundwork to then start the initiative. – Not to make mandatory human rights and advocacy in the call for proposals in the case of

restrictive government environments e.g. Ethiopia. – Co financing could be more flexible to include in kind contribution.

• Best practices– Be able to do small scale projects for piloting new ideas. – Emphasize inclusion of cross cutting themes within each

project.– Continue evaluation meetings with recipient organizations. – It takes time and cost to develop best practices; would be

good if the next call supports these aspect more strongly. Action; the EC could have a virtual workshop of current workshop attendants in the coming year which would not be costly but would be able to yield interesting results.