Oral evidence: Jobs and Livelihoods, HC 685Tuesday 16 December 2014

Oral evidence, 16 December 2014.

Witnesses

Farah Kabir, Country Director, ActionAid Bangladesh, Mike Bird, Operations Manager, Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing, Deepta Chopra, Research Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, and Mosharraf Hossain, Director of Policy and Influencing, ADD International, gave evidence.

Chair

Good morning, and thank you very much for coming in. I apologise for keeping you waiting, but, as you will have seen, the last session was generating interesting questions. Again, just for the record, can you introduce yourselves, starting with you, Mosharraf? Nice to see you again.

Mosharraf Hossain

My name is Mosharraf Hossain. I am Director of Policy and Influencing, ADD International. ADD is a British charity working with disabled people in Asia and Africa.

Deepta Chopra

My name is Deepta Chopra. I am from the Institute of Development Studies, and I lead the DFID-funded programme on women’s empowerment there.

Mike Bird

Mike Bird. I am the Operations Manager for Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing, catchily.

Farah Kabir

Good morning, I am Farah Kabir. I am the ActionAid Country Director in Bangladesh.

Chair

Thank you very much. First of all, you will be aware that this Committee has, in the last year or two, produced reports on women and girls, and on disability. Obviously, these are areas of particular concern for employment purposes. What are the main barriers that stop women from entering the labour market in developing countries? One of the things they often quote, not the obvious one of fetching and carrying water, is the caring responsibility, unpaid and very demanding. Indeed, we have seen that, on average, women work for about 16.5 hours a day, and men for about six and a half. There is a clear disparity there. What are the barriers, and what do you think are the main solutions?

Deepta Chopra

I would like to kick off with that. Basically, you are very right. Women and girls—I just wanted to link it to the previous session about youth, in talking about young women—bear a disproportionate burden of care work. When we talk about barriers to economic empowerment, we really need to understand what we mean by economic empowerment, and whether economic empowerment is simply participation in the labour market or about the choice to participate in the labour market, the time that they have to participate in the labour market and the opportunities. It is the lack of the choices, and the lack of time and opportunity, that really constrains them. This is where unpaid care work takes predominance. Unpaid care work not only restricts women and girls’ time, in terms of their participation, but also limits the choice that they have in terms of the location of the work that they can do and the types of sectors that they are engaged with, and Mike will speak more about how then they end up in low‑paid informal sector work. That is one of the key constraints and a structural barrier to women’s participation in the economy. You asked about solutions. The solutions are very much around recognising the importance of unpaid care work, and recognising that unpaid care work is a good thing. Care is good; it has to be optimised. Only by recognising that it is important in its contribution to the economy, and to sustaining the market economy, can it lead to gains that are both optimised, in terms of women’s participation into the labour market, but also shared across families.

Chair

That was really the point I was going to press home. Given the disparity in terms of commitment, how realistic is it to change the culture so that men accept more of the responsibility of sharing?

Farah Kabir

It is realistic, given that men see the value in it, because we have almost 3 million women coming in and working in the government sector. A lot of them have young children and parents, and they have to leave them behind. Sometimes men are not there; there is another woman taking care of the children and the family. However, there have been occasions, and it is increasing, where men have come forward. It is about the social acceptance and practices, and that is one of the biggest barriers—whether your peers, your mates, are doing it, and you are accepted in doing it. It is really about the value and the economic returns of it. We need systems and institutions supporting that. We need recognition that unpaid care is not just assigned to women, and nor is it a second‑class kind of a job. It has to be seen that it is important for the continuity of the family and the entire fabric of the society. This is where we need that sort of awareness‑raising and capacity‑building programme. However, we also need institutions and support from the state, so that when women have to work, or if they are going into the labour market—because they have the potential—they can contribute and make a difference. This is the kind of support that needs to be institutionalised and provided.

Chair

Mosharraf, I am aware of your story. I do not know whether the rest of the Committee are. In the sort of discrimination that disabled people face when they are looking for work, jobs and livelihoods, what are the obstacles?

Mosharraf Hossain

Thank you, sir, for asking this question. Let me share my experience. I was born in a middle‑class family and I came from a rural area. My family gave a lot of support for my education so that I could overcome my disability. I completed a master’s in economics, and then applied for a job in the government service. However, I was denied a job in the Bangladesh Civil Service, not because I did not have the quality, capacity or education, but because of disability. That is the discrimination; systemic discrimination is there. That is the main barrier for disabled people to have access for improved lives. That should be changed. As a result of that, even in Uganda, only 0.2% of disabled people are employed in the government, private sector, or even the NGOs. We can see just how that discrimination and marginalisation of some disabled people is there.

Chair

How do people justify saying you could not work as an economist because you were in a wheelchair?

Mosharraf Hossain

That is the question. A wheelchair is not a barrier to be an economist. To be an economist, intelligence is the main issue. I do have problems in my legs, but my hands work and my brain is working. Even among the world-recognised economists and scientists, Stephen Hawking, a disabled person, is contributing a lot to change the world. I think, first, we have to recognise the ability of disabled people. Then it will be much clearer. People who have an intellectual disability or other sorts of disability have some sort of functional limitation, but that can be covered. For example, in a rural area, a deaf boy was rearing cows, but he was getting less payment than other herders, simply because of the stigma. They think that a disabled person cannot work like others, so he was paid less. We need to change the perception of the stigma in society and create opportunities so that disabled people can gain equal opportunities like other people. Then, I think, their livelihood can increase.

Chair

Does the discrimination that affects women redouble itself if those women are disabled? Is that the practical evidence—that it is bad enough, in terms of the labour market or entrepreneurialism, to be a woman, but to be a disabled woman is twice as bad, or maybe worse?

Mike Bird

That is true, yes. What we know from statistical research is that women tend to be in the lowest remunerated and the riskiest forms of employment. If you face the double barrier of the stigma associated also with disability, then the short answer is, “Yes, it is a double barrier”. It is to do with this thing about perception, and how people perceive the roles of women, and the ability of people considered to be disabled.

Deepta Chopra

If you think about poor women, and you think about a woman who is able‑bodied and has to go for, let’s say, five miles to fetch water, you can imagine the kind of problems when the woman is disabled and not able to do those physically arduous tasks of collecting firewood and water. How does that play into the dynamics? This is what Farah was mentioning, when she said we need public services to cater to this double burden.

Fabian Hamilton

How far will general programmes to create formal jobs such as improvements to the enabling environment help women and people with disabilities, and how far are specific targeted programmes necessary? General programmes may not be specific enough for those groups.

Mosharraf Hossain

First we have to create opportunities in the general programmes. Many disabled people, or disabled girls or women, can work in the mainstream programmes. First, we have to ensure participation in the mainstream programmes. Nearly 50% of disabled women or men have severe disabilities. For them, some sort of targeted programme is required to supplement or complement those sorts of limitations. In most of the cases, the disabled people can work in the mainstream programmes.

Farah Kabir

We have been working with acid survivors. Unfortunately, there have been incidents where men have attacked women by throwing acid on their bodies and face. We took up a programme of trying to create employment opportunities for them. We worked with HSBC; we worked with other organisations. What we found is, even including salons and parlours, when the women had scars that were not so visible, it was possible for them to go and work in general situations or employment. However, if they were in any form visibly disabled, or had changes in their facial structure or body, then it became very difficult. Then we really had to come up with alternatives and special job opportunities behind, or not in, the public sphere. It requires a blend of both the sensitivity to understand the kind of disability, but also a lot of the organisations do not have the infrastructure. If you want to work, say, in the Government office, or in a museum, they do not have the infrastructure. If you are in a wheelchair, or if you are visually impaired, it will be very difficult to access those premises.

Fabian Hamilton

Should resources be targeted at the infrastructure, to enable larger organisations or governments to employ people with disabilities? Is that the way forward?

Farah Kabir

It is one, but it cannot be either/or. It is one, but it is also about capacity‑building. It is about providing opportunities and training for women with disability, or to take on newer options.

Mike Bird

Can I say something about informal employment writ large? I think it is really important.

Fiona O’Donnell

That is what I was going to ask about. Do you think we should be continuing to support women in formal employment, or should we be helping them to move out? Or should it be a combination? Thank you.

Mike Bird

Thanks very much. People have been talking mostly about the informal sector this morning. The informal sector is small and unregulated business and enterprise. The informal economy includes also people working in the formal sector, in formal jobs, but without employment contracts that offer social protections. By that broader definition of informal employment, rather than just focussing on the informal sector, over half the world’s employment is in the informal economy. It is massive. There was a notion in the late 1950s that it was a stage we would go through, and then we would get past it, and formal jobs would be created for the people who needed them. It just has not happened. One of the speakers in the former session was talking about the informal being normal, being the conclusion of the development report from 2013. It is true, and this is what we find to be the case. It is important, therefore, to talk about structural change. Again, there was a question earlier about whether the enabling environment is something to focus on, or something more focussed. The enabling environment is really important when you are talking about the numbers that we are talking about. There are international conventions on domestic work, and on home‑based work, and these are areas with a large majority of women employed in them. It is possible to imagine extending out the benefits of work, and the protections that come with work, and the dignity that comes with work as well, into an informal economy, and just accepting that it is always going to be with us. People will always find a way to turn a buck, because they have no other option.

Fiona O’Donnell

It must have implications, as well, for the tax takes of these countries. It will make it much harder.

Mike Bird

It does. What is often meant by moving from informal to formal is to tax and regulate. One thing we would say is that these people pay tax, often just not in ways that we would expect. There is tax paid in Value Added Tax, for example, on the products that they use in the work that they do. Farah talked about the women, usually, who work in the households of other women and men who go out to work, and so they are enabling another part of the economy to be turning. I guess what we would say is, “Absolutely create all the formal jobs we can”. That is an ideal to be aspired for, but recognise also that is not where the majority of the world’s working poor are. If we are interested in supporting them, we should be talking more about lifting the constraints on how they are able to operate. Again, it comes back to the question of stigma, and the way such people are seen. Street vendors swept off streets are providing a service that people find useful. There is a reason that they are vending in the streets. Would it not, therefore, be possible to talk about a private sector that imagines these people, and the work that they do? They are the dynamos of the economies in the places where they work.

Mosharraf Hossain

To create employment for disabled people in both the formal and informal sector, along with structural change, attitudinal change is very important. For example, we are implementing a three-year project. It was completed this year, supported by DFID. We created 700 jobs for disabled people; we want to raise their skill level and they will be employed in the government sector. However, initially they refused to employ disabled women in the government sector, as a sewing machine operator. Then we had to work hard to change the attitude of the employers, and we worked with them, and in the end it happened. Therefore, it is very important to change the attitudes so that it will enable disabled people to have formal employment. Even in the informal economy, in the rural areas they have seen that a mentally challenged person can be supported to make furniture. However, government people do not want to believe that he can produce quality things. Very often, they do not go and buy from them; they buy from other things. Social change is very much important. Unless it has happened that the society is positive, it will take time to create employment for disabled people.

Jeremy Lefroy

I just want to pick up on something that, Mike, you pointed out—that there are an awful lot of casual or informal jobs in the formal economy. One thing I noticed 15 years ago in Tanzania was that the casual workers’ employers had to pay National Social Security Fund for the casual workers, but they did not receive anything; it just went into their general running costs. That, after my inquiry, has now changed, and casual workers are now entitled to the NSSF, which is being paid on their behalf by employers. Are we seeing that kind of improvement of casual workers’ rights in the formal sector, the formal economy, improving in other countries?

Mike Bird

Yes, is the answer. There is recent legislation in India on street vending, a national law on street vending, which again makes clear what the rights are of people who vend. There is an example we were involved in, achieved through DFID funding, through the Civil Society Challenge Fund, in Peru, extending out a universal healthcare system in Peru such that it included people who were working in casual jobs. Again, there was something similar in Ghana recently; again, there is a National Health Insurance Scheme, but for all the usual reasons there were barriers to the very poor who were working getting involved in it. It was possible, again, to extend that out. There was a recruitment drive for headload porters, who are some of the most marginalised and abused of the women working in the markets around Accra, to get them involved in benefitting from that scheme.

Sir Peter Luff

I want to ask the same question twice, first about women and then disabled people. Where do you strike the balance between improving livelihoods for women in agriculture and creating new jobs for women in the new manufacturing industries?

Farah Kabir

Even now, we have almost 80% of jobs in agriculture. It is a very important sector, but it is affected by seasonal unemployment. It is affected by climate‑induced disaster. Therefore, we find that when opportunities in agriculture are not there, there is a shift towards the manufacturing sector. It is not necessarily that the women who move to the manufacturing sector have made a fully informed choice. Sometimes it is driven by need and circumstances and disaster. We will need to have both of them, at least from the Bangladesh or South Asian experience, because the Government only employ a very small percentage of people, and we are a country of 160 million. The remaining 80% of employment is in agriculture and the informal sector. Then there is the employment in the formal sector. To try to increase the employment in the formal sector, and get to a balance, we would need more investment. We have not seen industries being invested in. We see a lot of investment from our development partners, in terms of supporting women for dairy projects, or household farming and gardening. However, no‑one has really put in that investment to create an industry base, and right now there is a lot of discussion going on on national development strategy, and that needs to be synced in with the industrial policy. The Seventh Five Year Plan for Bangladesh is in the making. Again, we need our development partners, including DFID and other development partners, to talk with the national government, to invest more and create industries. It is coming from the private sector. We now see Bangladesh has an electronics industry, where a lot of the women are employed, because it is assembling factories so it is not high‑tech. It is low or semi‑skilled, so the women are there. There are cycles that are being assembled in Bangladesh for the Chinese or the Europeans, and the leather industry, again, makes a lot of leather products for the European/Italian market. Investment has to come, and that will create formal manufacturing sector employment. Agriculture will remain, because of our context, and food production and so on. It has to be a blend of both.

Sir Peter Luff

It is difficult to disagree with that answer. However, when DFID comes to set its policy priorities, how can it choose whether to boost livelihoods for women in agriculture, or create new jobs in the manufacturing sector?

Mosharraf Hossain

The main development discourse, like the sustainable development goal, is on the principle of “leave no one behind”. Even this document, the Disability Framework, is also leaving no one behind. I think, even before people are leaving the agricultural economy, they should not be discriminated against. The issue is about strategy and innovation, and it depends on the country context. For example, in south‑east Asia, that is a good place—the countries where more jobs can be created in the formal economy or in the manufacturing sector. But I also visited Tanzania two years ago and I saw a disabled woman producing a straw basket, and with this thing it is remaining in the vicious cycle of poverty. It is very difficult to come out from that. However, in Tanzania the Government expect that that will happen like south‑east Asia, that new industries and employment will be there. Then DFID has to develop a strategy or a programme specific to the country context, so that even the old disabled women who are working in the agricultural economy can also act. I can give you an example for Bangladesh. Disabled women used to rear cows, and once it was very difficult to sell cows and earn an income. However, there is a now a national business chain, and they are producing and selling milk products based in Dhaka. They are also joining the supply chain. Accordingly, in countries like Bangladesh there is a greater possibility that you can engage them, but in a country where those sorts of opportunities are not there, DFID should develop a specific programme designed to address those priorities.

Deepta Chopra

I would like to offer a slightly different answer to your question. You asked where DFID should concentrate its priorities, in terms of investment in livelihood opportunities or investment in creating formal sector jobs in industry. What is missing in that question is the question of unpaid care. Whatever DFID does, wherever it creates its investment opportunities, if it does not take into account unpaid care work of women, women will not have the time to participate. They will not have the choice to participate in the sector they want to participate in, in the location they want to participate in. They will be constrained. Therefore, whatever DFID does, it is not going to reach that big-bang objective of economic empowerment of women, unless it actively creates those enabling conditions and tackles those very structural deep-rooted causes of poverty and their disempowerment, of which unpaid care is critical.

Chair

The Brazilian Bolsa Família offers social protection payments, but on condition—in that case, that you get your children vaccinated and they attend school. You could adjust it, could you, to say that these payments are available provided the care is shared, or provided opportunities for employment or earnings are included in the acceptance of the payment?

Deepta Chopra

Yes, social protection programmes like Bolsa Família have immense potential. However, I would say that when we are talking about poor families, both men and women work incredibly hard. It is not like men are sitting and not doing anything; in fact, we see in our research that the distribution of care work in poor families is more equitable than the distribution of care work in middle‑income and higher income families. What we are proposing is not programmes like Bolsa Família, with those conditionalities like health and education in place, but perhaps to facilitate the fulfilment of those conditions by provision of public services, like drinking water and clean cooking stoves, and infrastructure like ICTs, which are care‑sensitive. It would need not just any infrastructure but care‑sensitive infrastructure, which takes into account those time barriers that women and girls face.

Sir Peter Luff

I do not think I will pursue the question, but I am not quite clear, if I were a Minister, where I would judge my policy priorities to lie: in livelihoods in agriculture, or new jobs in the private sector. I am not clear I have got the guidance I need to make that decision.

Mike Bird

Can I try a response as well? DFID is not going to solve the world’s problems. DFID is not going to create all the jobs that can be created. There is merit in deciding where your expertise lies, building on that expertise, and doing that work, but as part of a much broader approach. What DFID does very well, in my experience, is also engage with other donors, and talk about how to run complementary programmes. I would encourage DFID to do exactly that. It matters less whether you choose one or the other. What matters more is to do whatever you are going to do as well as you can do it. It just is hard work; it just requires an awful lot of investment over a long time. That is where I have seen DFID and other donors fall down, in my experience: just not following through. But as to the pursuit of the one idea that is going to solve the problem, as if there was one idea that would solve the problem, it just is not so. Develop expertise. People earlier were talking about metrics—about how to measure success. Figure out what is working best, and then follow through. Again, there is an assumption, often, that if you are working at central level in country X, then you are somehow reaching that country. However, a national programme is not a central programme, for me; it is a programme that has coverage across a country. Investment, somehow, in reaching out all across a country is more important than just saying we can fix some laws, or we can work in a technical unit with a ministry, and imagine that that will solve problems. It is more of an approach, I think, than a choice between thematic ends.

Jeremy Lefroy

Hugh and I, in Tanzania, visited a programme run in one particular reasonably remote place, called Babati, run by BRAC, which was financed by DFID and BRAC, who were operating in a lot of places throughout Tanzania, and often places that other NGOs would not go. I just wondered, since two of you are originally from Bangladesh, what your experience of BRAC was in Bangladesh and elsewhere, and whether they would be a good partner in the kind of work that we are talking about, particularly in respect of women and disabled people. Farah, you have got the on‑the‑ground experience.

Farah Kabir

BRAC is an amazing organisation, or institution. It is a hybrid. It is no longer an NGO; it is a model of its own. It has huge coverage across the country. They have contributed in terms of microfinance and education, and they do create employment. However, from our perspective, we do have some reservations, in terms of the creation of employment, or the informal education. I would like to just take you back a little bit to the informal education programme, which was supposed to be a bridge, and take this education into the mainstream. Somehow, however, BRAC’s informal education continues, and DFID does fund a lot of that programme. It a separate institution; it has not brought main education together. Therefore, there is a gap: children who are in BRAC institutions find it difficult to become a part of mainstream public education. There is a gap there, and that could also be difficult in facilitating employment and so on. They have certain programmes that are very useful. It is huge in coverage. It has spread all over the country, so that is the advantage that BRAC has. It can manage billions in that system.

Mosharraf Hossain

The institution of DFID and the institution of BRAC are almost the same. For example, DFID has created this framework to change internally—to make this type of organisation transformative. I had some similar discussions with DFID. They also have started a similar type of approach, to make BRAC disability‑inclusive, to recruit more staff and gender policies. However, of course, this organisation is working in 47 or 48 countries. However, disability is not in focus. I can give you two examples. They had a massive education programme, but two years ago, I gave them some consultation, and only 100,000 disabled children were there. However, the good thing is that only BRAC could see that was how many children are there. No other organisation, even the Government, can see that. The number is limited. They just started to include the disability issue. BRAC and ADD have measures to ensure that disabled people are included in their microcredit programme. Only last year, we gave them a list of 17 people. Through that, they started this very small number as a pilot. However, up to a certain time, the disabled people faced some problems in repaying their loans. We asked BRAC whether they could change their practice or not. They said, “No. If you want to include disabled microcredit, you have to come within our programme”, and the disabled people said, “No, we do not want such a microcredit”. Then it did not work. However, other microcredit programmes, like the ones by the Government, are working, but within the existing programmes, that is.

Jeremy Lefroy

The reason I ask this is very specifically because we have been talking about the scalability of programmes, and it seemed to me that BRAC, of all the organisations I have met, can deliver things at scale in relatively remote areas. Therefore, the question is: can it also meet these other needs for minorities, or for disabled people, or indeed for women? In the employment programme, which we saw in Tanzania, they were suggesting to me that that is possible, but it needs to take engagement from DFID to ensure that is the case. Am I right?

Mosharraf Hossain

Even in Afghanistan, I have seen BRAC workers going to remote areas. BRAC has that capacity, through their practice, to reach remote areas. However, I do not think that BRAC is practised in reaching the more vulnerable people, like disabled people. If BRAC want to, they can do it, but I do not think sole agency should go to one organisation. It should be shared by many organisations. For an issue like disability, as many organisations should come as possible, so many disabled people get access to the development process. It also needs to have an innovative approach. Priority should be given to those people that are in hard‑to‑reach areas.

Jeremy Lefroy

My final question to everybody is that in the Economic Development Strategic Framework at DFID, they say that marginalised groups face specific structural barriers and are often over‑represented among the extreme poor. They can include girls and women, ethnic and religious minorities, young and elderly people, conflict‑affected populations, people with disabilities, and geographically disadvantaged groups. How can DFID ensure that its work on jobs and livelihoods helps overcome the barriers for these particular groups? It is a huge question, but how can it at least start to address that?

Deepta Chopra

One thing is that the EDSF does not have any mention of unpaid care work at all in its ambit. It is very surprising, when you are talking about economic development framework, you do not have the root or mainstay of all economic participation, especially when you are talking about the marginalised, the poor and the most vulnerable, and groups that face multiple vulnerabilities. They are not just the poorest. They are also the disabled poorest, or they are women and girls caught into social norms and gender disparities, and divisions of roles and opportunities within the household but also within society. For me, I would suggest that DFID follows what I call a saturation strategy, which is that, because unpaid care work is so far‑reaching in its consequences as well as its impacts, whatever DFID does in its framework needs to be linked very strongly to the recognition of unpaid care, the reduction of its drudgery, and its redistribution through public services. Also, in everything that it does, if care work is thought of, mentioned and worked upon, then the saturation strategy can make these gains sustainable.

Mosharraf Hossain

Now, we have the framework, but we should have vision as well. For example, by 2020, 600 million jobs will be created. How many disabled people will be there? If we consider that 15% of any population will be disabled, then 100 million jobs would go to disabled people. At this moment, 20% of all disabled people are unemployed or are living below. That is 200 million. If we can create 100 million jobs for disabled people, and if that target is set, then other actors, like the World Bank or other bilateral agencies, or even at a country level, can offer support. DFID can play that role, to subsidise the work and to sensitise the actors in the development sector. For example, disability was not in the Millennium Development Goals. We did not get any benefit. However, now, in the development discourse that is going on, there are four goals: employment, education, inequality and accessibility. In their report, those four targets are there. DFID can play a role to mobilise other stakeholders, so that whatever the sustainable development goals that will be passed in the next General Assembly, those four objectives should be there. Without that, it should not pass in the General Assembly, because this is our time. For a long time, we have been discriminated against. If we do not get that space in the next sustainable development goals, then these people, 15% of the population, will be living in poverty. With this framework, you can set up targets, and I want big targets to be there, so that all actors should come for that.

Farah Kabir

If I may, it needs to add decent work. If you look at the Secretary‑General’s report, he is also referring to dignity. Unless there is decent work, then it will be difficult to achieve the SDG target of work with dignity, and include the poor. We would think that it is tied in with responsible business. DFID could hold other international development partners or national governments to abide by ethical, business and human rights principles. Back in the UK, it can also hold their companies responsible. We see this very much in respect to what is happening in the garment manufacturing sector. There is a huge gap in terms of ethical, business and human rights practices there. DFID could play a major role in ensuring that multinational or transnational corporations take this on board, because you have the UK national contact point on OECD. So far, the UK contact point’s reports have not been really looking strongly into the business and human rights principles. Working with the ILO, and the UN Global Compact on Business and Human Rights, is where DFID can definitely contribute, and that would lead to decent working, and ensuring the rights of particularly women.

Mike Bird

I do think it is about time to re‑evaluate the relationship with the ILO. If DFID is serious about working on employment, you had better be working with the one multilateral organisation that knows absolutely what is going on there. Another thing about the ILO is that it has that tripartite structure. The other side of what DFID can do, should do, and anyone who is interested in creating better jobs must do, is also to support organising. The world’s working poor, without being organised, are not going to see benefits accrued to them. My organisation, WIEGO, was set up largely by the Self‑Employed Women’s Association in India, which started very small in the 1970s. It now has 1.9 million members, and is part of the International Trade Union Confederation. Their motto was, “We are poor but we are many”. They have been able to win benefits for their members by virtue of being organised. People must organise themselves; DFID cannot come in and organise them. What DFID can do is support workers’ education programmes and those kinds of things, which facilitate, again, the leadership of women within representative associations of workers, who then can be the dialogue partner for their government and explain what it is that they need in order to see their livelihoods improve.

Hugh Bayley

That is a very useful comment, which I would like to pursue a little bit further. The Rana Plaza disaster showed only too clearly that not every job is a good job. I find this phrase “decent jobs” rather twee. “Indecent jobs” are jobs which kill people, which take mothers away from children and which ruin lives. Is there not a ghastly gap in the middle of DFID’s strategy, where it just turns a blind eye to indecent employment? What should change in the employment strategy, if we can do it, when workers are crushed through crappy factories?

Farah Kabir

For 20 years, in the garment manufacturing sector, businesses were making profit. They did not seem to have a problem. They did not take responsibility for what the conditions were on the ground and on the floor. They attributed them to offshore business, or they had contracted national workers. There was a gap there. No one had come forward to say, “You have to be responsible and accountable”. They were making triple the profit, and only 40.53 cents were going to the workers. That cannot be decent work. In the initial stages they were not even allowed to have more than a certain amount of water, because they would have to go the toilet, and mass production would suffer. However, none of the business houses, the companies, were really looking into that. Then when you have incidents like the Spectra, where there is a fire, or the Rana Plaza—the worst industrial incident—then, suddenly, there was this awakening, and talk about inspectors, changing the labour law and bringing in association. There was a lot of pressure, and, of course, my government has complied, and now we have 200 labour unions registered. There are 200 or so inspectors to be employed. However, is it really going to happen? Then, if it is not happening, how do you monitor that? How do you follow up on that? That is one part. In addition, civil society here needs to say to these companies, “While you were sourcing it from those countries, you were happy”. Walmart initially said, “We are not going to source anything from Bangladesh. We are walking the other way”. That is not responsible business. We feel that there is a role for DFID through the OECD national contact point and raising awareness here. The consumer also has to ask, “How can I get a t‑shirt for £3?”. Somebody, somewhere, is being deprived. In terms of the enabling environment, when you go the A-category factories, you see that it is there. It is state‑of‑the‑art, high‑tech and providing services. The problem is at the second and the third level, where they are turning away and saying, “We do not know. I contracted Farah, but I do not know to whom Farah subtracted”. I do not think that, in this day and age, is going to work, because information is available. Through some form or other, you will understand that this is happening. Therefore, there has to be greater responsibility. DFID had the Challenge fund and the RAGS fund, where you created opportunities for workers to run cafes and legal literacy programmes outside the premises. Now, we can move to the premises, and ask for trade union association for the workers. This is where they will have the bargaining power. If something is not working, they can come back and register the company.

Hugh Bayley

You described graphically what needs to change. My question is: can DFID be an agent for change? First of all, has the existence of trade unions in Bangladesh led in some companies, at least, to improved conditions for the workers, a safer working environment and better rates of pay?

Farah Kabir

There has been awareness, but the trade unions were not allowed until recently.

Hugh Bayley

I know.

Farah Kabir

It is just in the last year that we see so many trade unions have registered. The negotiations fall through around the fact that we have legislators who own these factories, and they are making legislation for the poor and the workers. They are looking at their own pockets and interests, so we have this block. Having said that, our development partners can, and they have, put on pressure, which has led to the labour laws being amended in 2013-14. That pressure, and the support, can continue. We will see a change, and DFID can play a role in that planning, because DFID is involved in helping us developing our Seventh Five Year Plan. It is working with the Government on good governance. It has helped on commerce and employment. It is bringing in UK business to Bangladesh. The FCO and the UK are inviting companies to come. As they come, they also have to have some responsibility.

Hugh Bayley

You talk about civil society organisations in the UK asking difficult questions about the conditions under which a t‑shirt or flowers were produced. Why is it a responsibility for civil society organisations? Why is it not a responsibility for Primark, or Marks & Spencer? Should DFID not be organising a conference in this country to demand that products are sourced from companies that recognise trade unions, for example?

Mike Bird

It is a shame you cannot hear from one of my board members, who is a market vendor in Cotonou in Benin, who says, “It is difficult to wake people up when they are already awake and pretending to be asleep”. Part of the problem is that it is the business model that is being pursued by large corporations that is leading to the poor jobs. Absolutely, the kind of responsibility that you are talking about can be taken by DFID, and you can imagine convening these kinds of things. DFID does two things already in this direction that I know about, and maybe others do as well. There was a project called Capturing the Gains, which was about looking at supply chains, and looking at contractual arrangements within them. The conclusions they drew were that the business model is to push risk down the supply chain. You have these hollowed‑out companies like Gap, where it does not own the factories where things are produced, and it does not own the shops where it sells things. It owns the brand. It seeks to evade responsibility, I am afraid. It is unfair to home in on one company; that is a general business model. Another thing that DFID has been part of is supporting the Ethical Trading Initiative here in London. Again, you can point to some examples of companies seeing the need to look at their business model, and seeing benefits in the long term of being more responsible right through their company and its business practices, rather than having a corporate social responsibility bolt‑on that does things that it talks loudly about and points to, but does not affect the way its practices impinge on the people at the bottom of its supply chain. DFID could build on that. Again, that is another tripartite arrangement, and it is organised labour that are most sceptical of whether the Ethical Trading Initiative is producing anything that is of benefit to the workers at the bottom of these supply chains. Until and unless we can see more evidence of that, it bothers me that in this EDSF, there is a focus on working through the private sector, defined as British companies working overseas. As I was saying before, the private sector must be also about the people working in the informal economy.

Hugh Bayley

I know we are short on time, but I do not want general statements of what would make a better world. I want practical examples of things, now or in writing afterwards, that DFID could do to make workplaces safer or to address this problem of hollowed‑out companies. We have talked about holding a big conference here, with large UK‑based enterprises that source materials to sell from developing countries. In terms of the right of trade unions to exist, the right to water while you work, the right to a certain amount of space standards and other safety provisions, should we not have an advocacy programme? Should we not be supporting NGOs and trade unions that are seeking to enforce these new laws? Would that not be a sensible thing for DFID to do? We provide technical advisers in so many fields of government, such as to make courts work more effectively or to enable tax collectors to collect more revenue. Why are we not hiring trade union representatives, maybe from other countries in the south, who understand what it is like organising in a largely unorganised environment? Why are we not funding trade unions, so that they can employ more organisers to supervise: to see whether these regulations are being enforced or whether it is a bit of window dressing put up by the Bangladesh government?

Farah Kabir

Particularly because the business community has a greater clout than the poor workers down there, and therefore, until recently, as I was saying, if you take Bangladesh or other parts of South Asia, you were not allowed to have association. Now that you are being allowed to have an association, the history of trade unions in India is very strong. When you come to Bangladesh, the history of trade unions is partisan. The trade union is totally controlled by one party—whoever is in power. They have not been effective. Having said that, it is a good idea that DFID is talking about investing in advocacy, but you have to look at the context in which they are working and the legislation has to support the workers to be able to take these cases and complaints. Until recently, we were not allowed, because we were a part of EPZ, the Export Promotion Zone, which absolutely does not allow any trade union. That is the condition on which these companies were coming into Bangladesh. Now that they have been allowed, they have to be able to operate and take their complaints. What might also be useful is to create a lobbyist group that can come to the UK or the US and the EU, and go and lobby for the rights of the workers as well. It is Primark or it is Walmart or it is some company saying, “Well, I am giving the manufacturer X amount of money”, but the worker, when he or she is creating, is putting £45 on that jacket price tag, and only gets 50 cents. The national manufacturer tells us they only make £5 on it. The rest goes to the buyers, who are the overseas companies. We can have lobbyists, who are there to take up the causes of the poor, and lobby with them, but the main thing is their country of origin has to hold them responsible. We have no legislation, no jurisdiction. I can complain; I can create all the noise with all my civil society organisations and workers’ unions in Bangladesh. How does it impact Primark or Marks & Spencer here, unless your government and your civil society create that pressure?

Hugh Bayley

What about the idea Mike came up with of re‑joining the International Labour Organisation? Does the ILO provide support on these industrial safety issues, on employment law, on trade union rights?

Farah Kabir

Yes. In fact, right now, after Rana Plaza, it has been the ILO that has helped to work with us, a national organisation, on the compensation and on health. That has one of the vehicles or the conduits through which the funding has also come from.

Chair

Has DFID been involved in that? The Secretary of State, when he withdrew the core funding from the ILO, said that did not prevent and would not prevent DFID working with the ILO on programmes in‑country. It was simply the core funding that they would withdraw on the back of that. I am just reporting what the Secretary of State’s view was. We definitely have had engagement with the ILO in some countries. I do not know if you have been involved in that.

Mike Bird

A particular project of the ILO that it is useful to mention in this context is the Better Work project, and this was set up initially as the Better Factories project in Cambodia, where I was working at the time. It has expanded since then. I know one of the critiques of ILO by the report that looked at the effectiveness of multilateral engagement was that it was difficult to measure its impact. The Better Factories and now the Better Work project are more focused and more targeted streams of work. That is providing for factory inspections, and it is building a framework that people increasingly on both sides, on the management and the labour side, are confident in. It is supporting commercial courts, which, certainly in Cambodia, were the only courts where you could get any kind of justice at all. It is doing good, positive stuff, and it will be useful to get behind that initiative.

Mosharraf Hossain

If we really want to create more employment, the work environment should be secured as well as accessible, so that the disabled people, wheelchair users and those with other sorts of impairments can also work on this. The ILO is reporting those things. With decent work, we need to be exploring an inclusive work environment, and factories should follow universal design, so that everybody, especially the disabled people, can work in those factories.

Chair

None of this resolves the problem of the fact that the majority of people are working in the informal sector, where none of these things will apply anyway. Or, if they did apply, it would be to say we should not buy their stuff, because they do not comply. We have to balance these things.

Fabian Hamilton

At an evidence session we had last month on our report entitled Beyond Aid, Owen Barder, one of the witnesses, said, “Microcredit for very poor people is, I think, of questionable value. The empirical evidence of impact evaluations suggests that it has not been a great success”. My question to you is: how important is the availability of microcredit for improving women and people with disabilities’ livelihoods? How do you respond to those recent criticisms of microcredit?

Mosharraf Hossain

If I can consider disability, the answer is yes and no, both. For example, yes, I personally believe, even from evidence, microcredit is a successful programme. That is why many different countries are following these things. If microcredit was not there, there would be more poor people. However, microcredit does not lease to the 10% poorest who are on the bottom of that poverty ladder. For extremely poor people, or extremely poor disabled people, I do not think that a conventional microcredit programme is working. That is why in Bangladesh neither Grameen nor BRAC, which has a big microcredit programme, could reach disabled people, or disabled people thought that they cannot pay the instalments, because of the high interest rate as well as the short repayment time. However, the Ministry of Social Welfare is operating a microcredit programme, and that is much more flexible and suitable for disabled people. They are reaching those things. After six months, they can give the money back, and the interest rate service charge is only 5%. Microcredit should be designed in such a way that it can reach the poor and marginalised people. For our projects, like From Margin to Mainstream, we work with extremely poor disabled people, and they do not have access to microcredit. First, we bring them under social protection programme. Within three years they had graduated from extreme poverty, and they needed more money to extend their business, and then they went to BRAC, and they gave them money, and they used the microcredit to expand that business. For extremely poor and disabled people, social protection is the most appropriate programme. For the people who earn below $1, microcredit is not effective. However, for those who earn more than $2, the people who need more money, microcredit is suitable.

Fabian Hamilton

Microcredit has been patchy in its success, and good in parts, not in others. There are certain areas that it has not reached.

Mosharraf Hossain

Yes.

Fabian Hamilton

Do you concur?

Farah Kabir

The first generation of those who took microcredit have definitely benefited from it, but microcredit was introduced in the same social context and the same patriarchal set‑up. For women, while they are recipients, what has happened is that the social context has not changed. The status and position has not changed. Now it is seen as, “You should be able to get microcredit, women. If you are not getting it, then there is something wrong with you”. The pressure on the women is now coming from a different angle. It has helped women to do small projects, and the main concept—that they have a right to credit—has happened, so they have access to credit. However, I have reservations about the way it has worked out and been executed. We have never engaged in microcredit. We do do a revolving fund—small seed funds to enable poor groups to start saving and create their own capital and assets and then move on. However, because there is an institution involved, there is a recovery issue. They celebrate the 98% recovery, but at what cost? When there is a disaster, women have no resources to pay it back. You still have to pay it back. These are some of the inherent problems in the execution now. There is the rate of interest. It can be anything from 25% to 40%. An individual like you or me can go into a bank and get credit for 7% or 10%. The poorest of the poor are having to pay 25% to 40%.

Fabian Hamilton

That is not uncommon, I am afraid.

Farah Kabir

These are the difficulties. It is mixed. It is, as you said, not a total disaster. It has its merits. It has good points, but it needs to be reviewed.

Mosharraf Hossain

If we really want to create employment in the informal economy or the agricultural sector, microcredit is a good programme. For that, it has to be designed in a way so that the poor people or the most marginal disabled people can use that. It seems that now DFID has developed a strategy framework. You can take that initiative, so that now it leads to the people are not receiving it.

Chair

I believe we have set a few hares running. I guess it is trying to support the informal sector, so that people’s livelihoods can improve, and encourage higher standards in the formal sector. I will just give you an anecdote of an event I was at two or three years ago, where we were discussing fair trade and free trade, and I did quote the example of a shirt made in Bangladesh and sold in Tesco for a very low price. Should I buy that shirt? Am I helping or am I hindering? Unfortunately, the reply I got was from Christian Aid was, “I would not shop at Tesco anyway”. Increasingly, people are not, apparently. I worry, and you said it yourself, that there is a danger that if you get halfway down the track, people say, “The best thing to do is not buy anything from Bangladesh”. I am not sure that is going to help poor people. I just think we have to be careful about how we get there. If DFID can engage, and show progress in improving the value share of health and safety and representation, and things like that, then that will obviously make people feel more confident in buying goods from developing countries. If we get too rigid about it, I can just see how the tabloid newspapers could work on that. Thank you very much. We have nevertheless explored a very interesting avenue. I hope we will be able to come up with something that is helpful. I think, given the scale of the challenge, DFID has really got to find out what works and put more resource behind it in conjunction with other agencies. That is one of the obvious lessons that is coming through. Thank you very much indeed. Oral evidence: Jobs and Livelihoods, HC 685 21