Impact of COVID-19 on Informal Laborers in Bangladesh
Published 3 months ago
COVID-19 is an overwhelming crisis that touched almost every sector. As the crisis spread up, the paradox of “life or livelihood” became visible for informal laborers in many countries. Specially, in the developing countries, where more than 2 billion people are engaged in informal sectors representing 60% of workers and 80% of enterprises (ILO, 2020). Informal Laborers refers to workers employed by formal, registered firms on a casual, day-wage basis, as well as subsistence actors such as self-employed workers. It includes street vendor, domestic worker, construction worker, transport worker, hotel and restaurant worker, migrant worker and so on.
What New Institutions Do We Need For An International Green New Deal To Be Feasible?
By Marie-Christine Ghreichi
DEC 22, 2020
As part of the Geneva Lecture Series concepted and conducted by prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic, former Finance Minister of Greece, Professor Yanis Varoufakis centered his two-hour mesmerizing discussion on the pressing need for new international financial institutions in light of increasing inequality.
Despite its intensification with the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic, Varoufakis argues that this crisis simply amplified the basic workings of the 2008 financial crisis, which was never adequately addressed. As a result, relatively low investment on savings and perpetual stagnation have produced sinister byproducts of populism, racism and xenophobia. The crisis of 2008 proved to be a pivotal moment in which a variety of actors agreed that a recalibration of global financial institutions was imperative due to the imbalances in trade and flow of capital.