Informal Worker Organisation and Social Protection

Informal Worker Organisation and Social Protection, (SPIWORK) is a 4-year joint research initiative between Roskilde University, University of Nairobi in Kenya and Mzumbe University in Tanzania financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Denmark (Danida).

The overall aim of the project is:

To generate new and urgently needed knowledge on emerging forms of informal worker organization, and their potential for enabling informal worker access to social protection measures in Kenya and Tanzania.

The project objectives include:
- Generating new empirical evidence based on six case studies covering three sectors (construction, petty trade and transport) in Tanzania and Kenya;
- Using this new empirical evidence to better theorize the ways in which negotiations around rightful claims for social protection take place, and the organisational forms through which claims are made and social protection provided and accessed;
- Developing analytical concepts for analysing the political economy conditions which shape informal labour markets and frame notions of, claims to and access to social protection;
- Developing policy recommendations based on the emerging evidence and theoretical work and strengthening the capacity of academics, practitioners and institutions, enabling them to better meet the needs of informal workers.