Photo: Courtesy
Metropolis Report –
The Government of Japan has come forward to provide financial assistance to support national efforts in extending protection to workers in vulnerable situations and promoting resilience and decent work through the formalization of the informal economy in South Asia.
The Japan-funded program “Building resilience for the future of work and the post COVID19 in South Asia” consists of the following two projects, promoting rights and social inclusion through organization and formalization (PRS), Strengthening integrated policy framework for formalization and decent work (STRIDE). The Program will operate in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan and support ongoing efforts of workers’ and employers’ organizations in organizing workers and economic units in vulnerable situations with a focus on workers, especially women workers, and supporting them to protect their livelihood and prepare for the better future of work and in post COVID19 and promote formalization of the informal economy.
In this regard, this project brings cutting-edge approaches to formalization and promotes decent work agendas to informal enterprises. As such, the ILO Country Office for Bangladesh signed an Implementation agreement with a key stakeholder, the National Association of Small and Cottage Industries of Bangladesh (NASCIB), for the implementation of a pilot project titled “Advocacy and Training Program for Entrepreneurs and Informal Workers to Encourage Formalization and Decent Work Amid COVID-19” in Bangladesh will be carried out in the designated districts of Gazipur, Narsingdi, Savar, Tangail, Chuadanga, Rangamati, Chittagong, Cox’s Bazar, Sylhet, and Rangpur. It will adopt the Formalize Your Business training with the support from ILO Headquarters for enterprise formalization and will provide training services on FYB in Bangladesh. A total of 200 entrepreneurs involved in the micro, small, cottage, and medium industrial businesses under this project will be trained. This is the first of its kind for ILO to implement this FYB training course in Bangladesh, the first country to receive this training. The training “Importance of Formalization and Decent Work to Facilitate the Increased Production and Sustainability of the Enterprises” will equip Informal entrepreneurs with the skills needed for different dimensions of business formalization, benefits, challenges, and the importance of decent work in their businesses. Entrepreneurs will be proactive in formalization and implement decent work at their enterprises to encourage increased production.
For the workers (300 people) of the related enterprises day-long training on “Role and Responsibilities of Workers in Formalizing and Adopting Decent Work to facilitate production Increase” is provided in batches of 20 people. The course is designed to make informal workers capable of understanding the importance of decent work, rights and privileges, and gender issues to facilitate the increased production of the enterprise, workers’ roles and responsibilities towards employers, and factory production.
After the intervention of the training provided by NASCIB, the nominated enterprises have started the implementation of formalization and decent work practices by keeping the details of employment rules and conditions of employees, service book, labor register, wage register and leave register. They provided appointment letters to the existing workers and committed to giving appointment letters to new workers.
On 15 November 2022, NASCIB just blew a whistle on the formalization process by providing identity cards (ID Cards) to the workers of Nakshi Katha Enterprise (Proprietor: Bristi Begum) at the “Inauguration Ceremony of Formalization and Decent Work in Informal Enterprises” event.
The chief guest of the event was Mr. Mirza Nurul Ghani Shovon, CIP, President, NASCIB, Special Guests Md. Mosleh Uddin Sadeque, Ph.D., National Consultant, ILOPRS and STRIDE Projects, Md. Habibur Rahman, President, Press Club, Narsingdi, Md. Azizul Hoque, Manager, BRTC, Mohammad Ali, Accounts Officer, BSCIC, Abdullah Al Shakib, Director, Consiglieri Limited, and the event was chaired by K. M Rustom Ali, Director, and President, Narsingdi District, NASCIB.
