Technology, informal workers and cities: insights from Ahmedabad (India), Durban (South Africa) and Lima (Peru)

Abstract

The findings reveal that informal workers in the study cities are using diverse tools, from manual devices to electrical equipment and internet platforms, to strengthen their livelihoods. Overall, the tools used tend to be basic. Often they are being adapted in ingenious ways in order to adapt to resource and other constraints. Take-up of improved tools is limited by low incomes and concerns about theft and confiscation. It is also affected by city-level, context-specific systems of energy, transport and waste. This paper summarizes which types of technologies are most useful to different sectors of informal workers. It argues that the policy and regulatory environment, and city-wide technological systems, should be more responsive to the technological and other needs of the urban informal workforce. KeyworDS informal economy / informal workers / information and communication technologies (ICTs) / technological systems / technology Martha A chen is the International coordinator of wIeGo, a Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, and an Affiliated Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. An experienced development practitioner and scholar, her areas of specialization are employment, gender, and poverty with a focus on the working poor in the informal economy. before joining Harvard in 1987, she had two decades of resident experience in bangladesh working with brAc and in India, where she served as field representative of oxfam America for India and bangladesh. She is the author and editor of numerous books including most recently Bridging Perspectives:

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