Informal document containing the draft elements of guidance on cooperative approaches referred to in Article 6, paragraph 2, of the Paris Agreement. Informal document by the Chair.

Draft elements of the modalities, work programme and functions of the forum on the impact of the implementation of response measures under the Paris Agreement . Informal document by the Chairs.

Millions of Asia’s informal workers – such as vendors, day laborers, and others – are left out of national pension systems. Here’s what we can do to help them in their later years.

ISLAMABAD: As many as 1.6 billion of the world’s 2bn informal economy workers are affected by Covid-19 lockdown and containment measures, a new briefing paper issued by the International Labour Organi­sation (ILO) said.

Most are working in the hardest-hit sectors or in small units more vulnerable to shocks including workers in accommodation and food services, manufacturing, wholesale and retail, and the more than 500 million farmers producing for the urban market, the report says. Women are particularly affected in high-risk sectors, it adds.

The Covid-19 lockdown and containment measures threaten to increase relative poverty levels among the world’s informal economy workers by as much as 56 percentage points in low-income countries.

In high-income countries, relative poverty levels among informal workers is estimated to increase by 52 percentage points, while in upper middle-income countries the increase is estimated to be 21 percentage points.

In addition, with these workers needing to work to feed their families, Covid-19 containment measures in many countries cannot be implemented successfully. This is endangering governments’ efforts to protect the population and fight the pandemic. It may become a source of social tension in countries with large informal economies, the report says.

More than 75 per cent of total informal employment takes place in businesses of fewer than ten workers, including 45pc of independent workers without employees.

With most informal workers having no other means of support, they face an almost unsolvable dilemma: to die from hunger or from the virus, the briefing says. This has been exacerbated by disruptions in food supplies, which has particularly affected those in the informal economy.

For the world’s 67 million domestic workers, 75pc of whom are informal workers, unemployment has become as threatening as the virus itself. Many have not been able to work, whether at the request of their employers or in compliance with lockdowns. Those who do continue to go to work face a high risk of contagion, caring for families in private households. For the 11 million migrant domestic workers the situation is even worse.

The countries with the largest informal economies, where full lockdowns have been adopted, are suffering the most from the consequences of the pandemic. Informal economy workers significantly impacted by lockdown vary from 89pc in Latin America and the Arab states to 83pc in Africa, 73pc in Asia and the Pacific, and 64pc in Europe and Central Asia.

Countries need to follow a multi-track strategy that combines several lines of actions relating to both the health and economic impacts of the pandemic, the ILO said.

Among its recommendations, the report highlights the need for policies that reduce the exposure of informal workers to the virus; ensure that those infected have access to health care; provide income and food support to individuals and their families; and prevent damage to the economic fabric of countries.

Published in Dawn, May 9th, 2020

Dr. Sethi raises an excellent point about the term functional neurologic disorder (FND) in his comment on the editorial.¹ It seems clear that reticence to use the term functional creates the ambiguity he mentions. Medically unexplained symptoms, categorized in the international classification of diseases as undifferentiated somatoform disorders, are a diagnosis that many providers are loathed to give. Whether that is because of concern about missing a diagnosis is not clear. Having evaluated and treated more than 400 of these individuals in the FND clinic at the University of Colorado, I can attest to the fact that patients arrive confused about their diagnosis. Multiple incorrect diagnoses, as Dr. Sethi points out, pack the medical histories of patients with FND, leading doctors and patients astray. I believe that the commentary by Perez et al.² gives us the best chance for a way forward, by teaching a new generation of residents and fellows how to approach patients in a nonjudgmental and open-minded fashion. It took 30 years to add Functional Neurologic Disorder to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, and it is still parenthetical to the term Conversion.³ Stripping the diagnosis of FND of its stigma and empowering care providers to rule in functional disorders is an actionable step which should be taken.

I read with interest the editorial by Strom¹ about functional neurologic disorders (FNDs). As a treating physician, I have struggled with the multiple diagnostic labels attached to these patients by physicians of different medical specialties during the course of their clinical disease presentation. A neurologist may assign a patient who presents with chronic fatigue the diagnostic labels of narcolepsy, idiopathic hypersomnia, or chronic Lyme disease. A rheumatologist may assign the label of collagen vascular disease, and a psychiatrist may diagnose depression. This diagnostic ambiguity is troublesome for patients and clinicians alike. I contend that even the term FND needs to be revisited. A patient should be broadly labeled as having a functional disorder and only after characterization sublabeled and referred to an appropriate specialty physician.

Formal businesses in developing countries often complain about unfair competition from their peers in the informal sector. Their complaints are often well-founded: Growing formal companies must go through the hurdles of paying taxes and fees, waiting in line for permits, and even facing greater scrutiny from government agencies. Informal businesses, on the other hand, use minimal,…

At first this smart lock seemed like gimmicky over-engineering. Then I got thinking about the possibilities.

Mr. Angel Gurría will be in Istanbul on 2- 3 October 2013, to attend the Informal Meeting of OECD Ministers of Education taking place under the overall theme Fostering skills and employability through education. The Secretary-General will deliver opening remarks on “Kick-starting a global skills revolution”, alongside Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Minister of National Education Nabi Avci.

Informality has important implications for productivity, economic growth, and the inequality of income. In recent years, the extent of informal employment has increased in many of Mexico's states, though highly heterogeneously.

This paper takes stock of informal employment in Russia analysing its incidence and determinants. Using the regular 2003-11 waves and an informality supplement of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) it develops several measures of informal employment and demonstrates that the incidence varies widely across the different definitions.

Mexico has embarked on a bold package of structural reforms that will help it to break away from three decades of slow growth and low productivity. Major structural measures have been legislated to improve competition, education, energy, the financial sector, labour, infrastructure and the tax system, among many, and implementation has started in earnest.

Telangana’s free registration of plain paper land sale initiative to digitally clean up its land records not only benefits its dispossessed farmers but makes land governance transparent, reports Manipadma Jena.

The impact of COVID-19 on the cricket ecosystem - structured and unstructured - at the grassroots has slipped under the radar

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2020.

Rotch Library - HF5459.B5 G65 2016

Simoni, Valerio

Dewey Library - P35.I54 2019

Online Resource

Online Resource

Williams, Colin C., 1961- author

Rotch Library - HT185.R48 2019

Rotch Library - HT169.B342 D435 2019

Online Resource

Online Resource

Barker Library - TL785.C53 2017

Rotch Library - HT169.B342 D435 2019

In high-income countries, relative poverty levels among informal workers are estimated to increase by 52 percentage points

Rotch Library - NA7555.B6 C38 2018