The Informal Economy Monitoring Study (IEMS) is designed to provide in-depth understanding of how informal workers are affected by and respond to economic trends, urban policies and practices, value chain dynamics, and other economic and social forces.
The Jeans Redesign (2019-2023) aimed to revolutionize jeans production for a circular fashion economy. Partnering with industry experts, the project created guidelines for brands to design jeans that are durable, recyclable, and made with minimal environmental impact. Launched in 2021, these guidelines have been adopted by over 100 organizations, leading to the creation of more sustainable jeans and a significant step towards a more responsible fashion industry.
This report highlights the Better Work strategy (2018-2022), a collaborative effort by the ILO and IFC to promote gender equality in the global garment industry. It highlights the importance of decent work conditions, including fair treatment, social protections, and work-life balance, for empowering women and fostering a thriving garment industry.
This report examines the role of the apparel industry in developing countries for women's economic empowerment. While the industry has brought more women into the formal workforce, the report argues it's not enough. It focuses on seven countries and explores how these nations can leverage the garment sector as a springboard for women's career advancement. The report emphasizes the need for additional policies to break down barriers that prevent women from reaching higher-paying jobs and staying in the workforce long-term. The goal is to move women beyond just having jobs to having fulfillin
This report explores how to maximize the economic value of skills in a dynamic job market. It emphasizes that a skill's worth depends heavily on how well it complements other skills, particularly those in high demand. The value of any skill is also relative to the worker's existing skillset, with the greatest value often arising from combining skills from different areas. Focusing on Artificial Intelligence (AI) skills, the report finds them especially valuable due to their strong complementarity and rising demand, boosting worker wages by an average of 21%. These findings can inform polici
This project, represented by the eleven studies discussed in this volume, set out to explore two broad questions: What are the experiences of individual workers and sellers as they rely on platforms to earn a living? What are the opportunities improve those experiences?
This Short Note is part of a series building on the report Working Without Borders: The Promise and Peril of Online Gig Work. This short note is based on a survey conducted in one of the largest microwork platforms and supplemented by data scraping from the same platform. Using descriptive statistics, network analysis, constrained linear optimization, linear regressions, and case studies, the note attempts to shed light on the world of microwork, which presents a low entry barrier opportunity for low-skilled people to supplement their incomes and participate in the digital economy.
This S4YE Note analyzes the importance of the fashion industry for socio-economic growth and examines its potential as a source of job opportunities for young people. It discusses jobs along the industry’s value chain, its contribution to global revenues and trade, and its evolution with changes in technology, environmental concerns, and changing consumption patterns. The note also highlights the skills required for jobs in the fashion industry and presents analysis to support the claim that the industry is a key driver of jobs for youth and women.
This Note is part of the Solutions for Youth Employment (S4YE) Knowledge Brief series that focuses on integrating a youth employment dimension and identifying opportunities in emerging sectors. Building upon S4YE’s Discussion Note on the Circular Economy, which aims to integrate the jobs agenda within the environment agenda, and the World Bank publication, "What a Waste 2.0”, this note focuses specifically on the waste sector.
This S4YE Knowledge Brief describes how The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award Foundation (the Foundation), an international charity and licensing body of The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award (the Award); a Non-Formal Education and Learning framework for young people aged 14-24 years old, uses the Social Return on Investment (SROI) framework and has developed a social value methodology (SVM) to measure the impact that the Award has on its stakeholders, such as Award holders, adults who support Award delivery, and wider society.
