Participatory approaches to improving safety, health and working conditions in informal economy workplaces. Experiences of Cambodia, Thailand and Viet Nam

Participatory training programmes are increasingly applied in Asia for supporting grassroots initiatives in informal economy workplaces to improve safety, health and working conditions. These participatory programmes are easy to apply and action-oriented, and focus on immediate improvement needs of informal economy workplaces. Workers in informal economy workplaces have identified and implemented practical safety and health improvements with the support from the participatory training programmes.

The ILO, learning from local successful stories of participatory training programmes, has been playing a facilitator role to strengthen local efforts in improving safety and health of informal economy workplaces. Government officials, workers, and employers have been trained to be participatory safety and health trainers. They have collected and disseminated local good practices in OSH, trained informal economy workers, and networked them for sustained improvement actions. The ILO has advised the government to recognize the participatory training programmes as a practical means to address safety and health in informal economy workplaces and incorporate them into national OSH policy and programmes.