It is often assumed that those in the informal economy possess low levels of skills or competencies and therefore have difficulty finding gainful employment. One of the most significant barriers to achieving success on the global developmental agenda (UN, 2024) is the global scale of the informal economy, associated decent work deficits, poverty, and the need to have vast amounts of job-creation to support informal workers. Many policy mandates and taskforces take a top-down approach and ignore ground realities and the voice of the worker that they seek to positively impact.

Over the last decade of field research in Humanitarian Work Psychology, I’ve learned much from working with those in the informal economy. One, contrary to many expectations, those in the informal economy can be highly skilled and that these skills are informed by meaningful, intergenerational, environmentally informed concepts, knowledge, and schemas. Based on the voice of a population that has largely been neglected in mainstream literature in our field, two, results have revealed that skilled artisans enjoy their work, experience positive affective and attentional states, high levels of agency, they work in harmony with nature and rely on cultural skills that are closely tied to their identity and promote social cohesion in the local communities.

Often, the notion that those in the informal economy can be skilled is ignored and not considered as a real possibility. Consequently, it is also often assumed that those in the informal economy work these jobs due to their inability to procure “real” jobs. In my grassroots work, I found that this was not the case. Participants wanted to continue to work in their intergenerationally driven heritage occupations. Often, government aid and decent work task forces recommend skilling programs, which end up having a counterproductive impact in that they rip people out of traditional occupations that can have a strong negative psychological impact. Economically, this often forces them to work base-of-the pyramid jobs.

There are clear practice and advocacy implications from this. Take for example, the plastic cup. It is environmentally hazardous, leeches microplastics into hot beverages, doesn’t disintegrate, and is typically single use, the serious hazards of which are well-known for the land, oceans, flora, fauna, and communities on our planet. Artisanal potters’ hand-make, from scratch, beautiful, functional, kulhads or earthen cups from locally derived clay that serve hot beverages in environmentally friendly, ecologically sustainable products, enhance the taste of the beverage, that do not lead to the pollution that plastic does, and importantly, provide meaningful livelihood to skilled artisans. It’s a win-win across the board. My research revealed that the answer is not in divorcing these artisans from their traditional occupations, rather, allow these artisans to (if they would like) utilize the frills of the modern world of business with help on sales, promotion and marketing attempts, creating sustainable supply lines, and so on. Years ago, for a period-of-time, I had a few local boutique coffee shops abandon their cardboard mugs, and instead use kulhads for their coffee customers. It went well! Customers, especially those who inquired, were impressed and in fact asked for their coffee in the kulhad as opposed to the cardboard.

Every year, I advocate heavily for using hand-made pottery oil lamps (instead of electricity guzzling sparklers) for cultural festivals and holidays. We are working to pilot a digital device that uses AI to connect consumer to product in partnership with colleagues with information sciences and technology. Organizations can use kulhads and earthen dishes and cups as part of their sustainability and corporate organizational / social responsibility initiatives. Much needs to be done and there is urgency as we spin close the 2030 target for the SDG agendas. If anyone is interested in partnering or has questions to support these initiatives, please do reach out.

By supporting the sales of artisanal products, we support global progress on the sustainable development goals, support microentrepreneurial, often in rural and remote parts of the world, enhance potential for a truly sustainable livelihood generation, and promote decent work.

References

UN (United Nations). The Sustainable Development Agenda. New York: UN. See: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/development-agenda/