Background

The town of Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh has 25,000 small and household units, with a workforce of 200,000 women and men engaged in brassware manufacturing, export and related services. Although Moradabad generates a major share of earnings from exports, the quality of employment of the MSEs is generally poor in terms of work environment, conditions of employment as well as social services and productivity and incomes in prices and quality has diminished opportunities for workers in this sector to break out of poverty.

Objectives

The ILO's Programme for Enterprise Development and Productivity Improvement (ILO-PEDPI), started as a cluster initiative, seeks to employ various multi-pronged strategies, including attempting to improve the working conditions of artisans and workers in manufacturing units.

Strategy

The Programme has four main components:

• Improving the working environment;
• Networking;
• Building capacities of local institutions; and
• Facilitating the promotion of conducive environment (policy and legislative advocacy/social marketing).