The Global Accelerator aims to facilitate and expedite the transition to formality through targeted investments and decent job creation. All the pathfinder countries of the Global Accelerator have included the transition from informal to formal employment as one of the priorities of their Global Accelerator roadmaps.
The Informality Dashboard is a visualization tool to help decision-makers overcome the persistent challenge of informality. Dashboard users can visualize the level and composition of informal employment in different sectors in the country, can see the progression of formalization over time, and can compare their country with other countries for a given sector.
In the Engagement Zone at the 112th International Labour Conference on 11 June 2024, participants had the opportunity to discover and explore the Informality Dashboard together with ILO experts. Users were able to understand where their countries stand in terms of informal employment, delved into sector-specific data, compared their data with other countries and sectors over time, identified some of the drivers of informality and explored opportunities for sector-specific formalization strategies.
Some of the questions that constituents raised while exploring the tool were:
- Is the formal employment rate in my country linked to GDP per capita? Has it improved, stagnated, or worsened recently?
- What is the distribution of formal and informal employment in specific sectors? If my country plans to invest in specific sectors of the economy, how likely is it to create formal jobs in those sectors?
- In which sectors in my country has formal employment increased recently?
- Is the formal employment rate in a given sector high or low compared to the same sector in similar countries?
- Is there scope to formalize employment and enterprises within a given sector?
A growing number of countries are engaging in sector-based approaches to support the transition to formality. The Dashboard aims not only to improve understanding of informal employment by taking account of the sectoral dimension but also to help guide the transition to formality in countries engaged in such processes. In the Global Accelerator pathfinder countries, the Informality Dashboard can contribute to support the selection of strategic opportunities to extend both decent employment and social protection coverage.
Notably, the Dashboard will help bridge conversations on sectoral policies and economic development with decent work and social protection coverage, both at the core of the Global Accelerator. Formality is a key connector between social protection and decent work.
Explore the Informality Dashboard here.