Informal workers make up around 60% of the global workforce. They lack social protection, enjoy fewer labour rights, and are often deprived of access to healthcare, education or training. The climate crisis and transition to green energy will only intensify the challenges they face. Any sustainable development strategy must therefore have formalising the economy and reducing the vulnerability of informal workers at its core. The OECD produces original data and analysis to help policy makers around the world better grasp informality, design innovative policy solutions, and boost social protection.
Human development and social inclusion
Human well-being, freedom, and dignity are at the heart of development. The OECD helps advance inclusivity, tackle inequality, and eradicate poverty in low- and middle-income countries by promoting policies that ensure people’s basic needs are met and no one is left behind. This includes efforts to increase access to decent, formal work; fight hunger and malnutrition; extend social protection; and achieve gender equality.
Key messages
The number of people forcibly displaced by violence, disasters or economic hardship has risen steadily over the last two decades. Over 70% of these people live in low- and middle-income countries, often with poor access to economic opportunities or essential services such as health or education. Including them in national systems on a par with non-displaced nationals is not only key to improving their lives: it can make them positive contributors to the economies of their host countries, lower the cost of forced displacement, reduce dependency on humanitarian aid, and prepare for durable solutions such as their return in safety and dignity.
Globally, hunger and malnutrition are on the rise. In 2023, some 282 million people worldwide were affected. In the Sahel and West Africa region, between April 2019 and April 2024, the number of people facing a food crisis increased by a factor of seven, from 5 million to 35.3 million. Food and nutrition insecurity is caused by structural factors (economic, environmental, demographic) and exacerbated by inflation, political tensions and the adverse effects of climate change. The OECD promotes inclusive policies that help fight hunger by reducing poverty, creating quality jobs and promoting skills development. By fostering international co-operation and sustainable practices and with a focus on the Sahel and West Africa, the OECD is working towards a world where everyone has access to adequate nutrition and food security.
Context
Empowering West African countries to develop better policies to prevent and manage food and nutrition crises
The Humanitarian, Development and Peace (HDP) nexus is an intervention approach that aims to provide sustainable structural responses to food and nutrition crises in contexts where these are highly exacerbated by conflict and other security tensions. The aim is to determine how food and nutrition security can be achieved by integrating and harmonising humanitarian, development and peace issues. The Sahel and West Africa Club (SWAC/OECD), together with technical and regional partners, plays a central role in the HDP Task Force, which is responsible for supporting 17 West African countries plus Cameroon in their reflection, dialogue and action.
Southeast Asia: climate change threatens the jobs of the most vulnerable workers
Southeast Asian economies’ heavy reliance on natural resources creates vulnerabilities for many workers and their households. Workers in sectors that rely on the environment – including agriculture, but also waste management, ecotourism or the manufacturing of wood products -- account for more than a third of total employment in the region. Their jobs are the most exposed to the effects of climate change and environmental degradation. Especially concerning is the fact that these workers tend to be already disadvantaged in the labour market: they earn 20% less than the national median and typically work in the informal economy with no social protection.
