#informal economy

[cognitivejustice]

Learning from the land: Using indigenous knowledge for climate-sensitive circular lifestyles

Indigenous techniques like natural resource renewal, tree-based farming, traditional mud-and-wood housing, and consuming local, uncultivated foods, can address some aspects of climate change and also bring about a sense of responsibility and connection with nature. Promoting agroforestry and integrating trees into farms can improve biodiversity and soil health. Adopting drought-resistant crops and traditional methods like rainwater harvesting, mulching, and using organic manure is vital for conserving moisture, enhancing soil fertility, and minimising external inputs. Building on these approaches, there is a powerful social dimension that further amplifies their impact.

But before proposing viable solutions, we need meticulous landscape mapping: understanding community environments, traditional knowledge systems, and specific vulnerabilities. Fully understanding these dimensions can pinpoint exact strategies to reduce our ecological footprint, and promote lifestyles that minimise electricity consumption and resource use, while drawing on ancient wisdom to enhance our modern lives.

[solarpunkbusiness]

Musana Carts: Solar-powered business in Uganda opts for open source IP over patenting

Taking its name from a Ugandan word for ‘sunshine’, the Musana cart uses an in-built solar panel to power an eco-friendly stove and a small refrigerator. By removing the need for charcoal burning, the Musana cart produces far less smoke than other food vendor carts, ensuring a cleaner and safer experience for both workers and customers. Other innovations include light bulbs, to allow the vendor to work at night, and phone chargers, so that they can offer mobile money services.

The decision not to patent the Musana cart could have been seen by Nataliey and the team as a setback, but it instead encouraged them to return to their original vision and mission of social innovation: making the livelihoods of Africa’s street food vendors cleaner, safer and more sustainable.

They realized that the more people who had access to their cart designs, the better, and that patenting their invention could restrict access. On this basis, they decided to open source their IP so that vendors across Africa were free to improve their lives through their innovation. When IP is open source, it means that other people and groups can freely use, modify and share it.

After several years of selling to vendors, Musana Carts is already having a positive impact in Kampala. The solar-powered food carts have proved to be cleaner, more hygienic and more sustainable than traditional charcoal-fueled food carts. The Musana cart’s in-built lighting allows vendors to work at night if they choose, giving them an opportunity to earn more. Musana carts can be purchased in installments, making them more accessible to poor workers. The company has also teamed up with Kampala Capital City Authority to ensure that Musana carts are legally recognized, freeing vendors from the risks and uncertainties of working in the informal economy.

Although she sees the value in patent protection in more economically developed countries, where the legal framework is in place to ensure that an individual can be remunerated for the use of their innovation or invention, she knows first-hand that this is much harder to establish in African markets. Consequently, Nataliey encourages female inventors not only to monetize their innovations in their markets, but to share them outside of their capacity as well.

Equally importantly for Nataliey, however, is the philosophy behind open source IP. When there are so many challenges facing the world, she argues, no one individual or organization can satisfy every market need. She feels that there’s room for many to thrive. Furthermore, Nataliey believes that open sourcing can incentivize further innovation by allowing people to build on each other’s inventions. It’s the concept of cooperation, codependence and community at the heart of the African philosophy of ubuntu: ‘I am, because you are.’ Nataliey’s hope is that her company’s use of open source IP will help make this concept a reality for street food vendors across Africa.

A case study on open source innovation from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)

[clearlyoutrageous]

It's easy to imagine capitalism as this inescapable, monolithic omnipresence, but that's not exactly true.

Capitalism has weight, it has variable density, it's stretchy in some places, and paper-thin in others. It can't reach everything because it requires infrastructure and people willing to carry it places. It needs to be fed, and you can choose to let it starve.

If you don't know where to start, start by paying attention to what people in impoverished communities do to help sustain each other and by extension themselves. They trade in food, time, manual labor, childcare, secondhand goods, and transportation.

Fuck self-sufficiency. It's time for Interdependence. Always offer help and always accept it. Cook meals for the people you love. Grow fruits and vegetables and give them to your neighbors. The "independent" person is merely the perfect version of a Consumer, eating directly from the palms of Corporation. Fuck self-sufficiency. Need one another.

[universalhealthcoverageday]

Universal Health Coverage & Universal Social Protection: A joint agenda to improve health equity and well-being in the informal economy.

Date: 12th of December 2024 from 9:00 to 17:30

Location: Hybrid event

Onsite: Room II at the International Labour Office in Geneva

Background: Human health and wellbeing are strongly determined by the conditions in which people live, work, grow and age. Therefore, working conditions, status in employment and effective social protection coverage, as they impact income, social cohesion, and inequality, also have an impact on people’s health, including mental health. Indeed, they affect nutrition, education, housing, healthcare seeking behaviours and other social determinants of health (SDH). Those determinants are rooted in the unequal distribution of power and resources which generates a social gradient in health at local, national and international levels, resulting in inequities in health outcomes within and between countries.

The bidirectional relationship between informal employment and health calls for integrated approaches. When indeed, addressing these social and environmental determinants of health requires the engagement of policy areas that go well beyond health alone, with a growing recognition of the importance of adopting multisectoral approaches to achieve health equity, which also contributes to greater social justice. This underscores in particular the need to reinforce the linkages between SDG target 1.3 on universal social protection (USP) and SDG target 3.8 on universal health coverage (UHC) to maximize their human development impact. Such integrated policies are aligned with the objectives of the Global Accelerator on Jobs and Social Protection for Just Transitions.

The ILO and the WHO are collaborating to explore inter-sectoral action to improve health and wellbeing, particularly in the informal economy, at the occasion of Universal Health Coverage Day 2024.

Agenda

09:00 - Opening

09:15 - Launch of the scoping review “Role of social protection in reducing the burden of public health and social measures during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence review”09:45Session 1: Setting the scene – the interplay between informal employment, the absence of social protection and health and well-being

11:00 - Session 2: Contribution of integrated approaches to promoting occupational health and extending social protection

14:00 - Session 3: Addressing informality within the health and care workforce

15:45 - Session 4: Universal Social Protection for health and well-being in the context of the climate crisis and other societal upheavals

17:0 - Closing

Universal Health Coverage & Universal Social Protection: A joint agenda to improve health equity and well-being in the informal economy - Hybrid event

Date: 12th of December 2024 from 9:00 to 17:30

Location: Hybrid event

Onsite: Room II at the International Labour Office in Geneva

Online:  A Zoom link will be made available after registration

[detroittoaccra]

New book alert - Making an African City: Technopolitics and the Infrastructure of Everyday Life in Colonial Accra

If you haven’t seen it already, Making an African City – a new book I published with Indiana University Press – is now out and is available for sale on the IUPress website, Amazon, and other typical booksellers. Most exciting, however, is that it is also available open access on the IUPress website as part of a new initiative supported by the trustees of Indiana University and you can access it…

[worldstatisticsday]

Accurate data is the foundation for precise policies to tackle informality.

Newly adopted statistical standards will improve measurement of the informal economy.

[socialjusticeday]

Improving workers' protection and enterprises' sustainability.

On the occasion of World Day of Social Justice 2022, ILO Director-General, Guy Ryder, says international community has a rare chance that must not be missed to shape a recovery from COVID-19 that delivers social justice for people and protects the planet we all depend on.

We need a response that focuses on people. That promotes social justice for all while protecting the planet we all depend on.

One priority must be formalizing the informal economy, where 60 per cent of the world’s workers still earn their living, often in poverty, with few rights or protections.

Other key steps must include:

Universal social protection.

Improving workers' protection and enterprises' sustainability.

Promoting decent jobs and inclusive economic growth.

And, creating a just transition towards a carbon-neutral global economy.

To bring it all together we will also need greater and more coherent co-operation between countries and between multilateral organizations.

It’s an enormous challenge. But, we already have a roadmap to guide us.

[missholloween]

Listening to the first episode of the severance podcast is so funny because when I saw Dylan's outie in the door factory I was immediately like "ah. That's a good wink to Dan's life and the job that inspired the show". But then the scene plays out, and, because of that knowledge, you see how precarious Dylan's situation is: he really struggles to get and keep a job, but he really needs one for health insurance (either his wife or one of his kids needs it). Lumon's severed job was a way to avoid that and get a steady income, but after losing it Dylan not only returns to this employment uncertainty, he is even in a worst position after because of being severed, which will close him doors even in the shittiest of jobs. If it wasn't for Mark S., Dylan and his family would have really struggled to stay afloat. And all this information is conveyed in an interview in a door fabric! Television is so back.

[futuretrain]

kinda to go along with my thoughts re: jason and the popular perception of his inescapable criminality when lacking bruce to guide him. i have a huge issue with how often the fandom at large/comics readers do their best to read the biological families of kids that bruce takes in as somehow bad, neglectful, or abusive, so as to be able to easily cut them out of the narrative (after all, if they're bad for the child in their care, then of course they don't deserve said child) and clear way for bruce to fold them into his family. as if the (much less privileged and less rich/poorer) family cannot in any way be (allowed to be) a good and loving environment for their child and only a (lbr very white-coded for decades) billionaire can deliver that

[benjaminallhope-fulltimemind]

here's a fun little definition to help people understand what inflation is, please follow and reblog for more

/credit: Lily Orchard

[cognitivejustice]

The floating homes of Lake Titicaca

Created by the indigenous Uros people as protection against attacks from the Incas, the Uros Islands are one of the world's most innovative feats of human engineering.

The man-made floating islets, which are home to the indigenous Uros people, are created by stacking layers upon layers of totora roots and reeds. This water-resistant plant grows in the lake and is the lifeblood of the Uros community: it is used to make boats, houses, roofs, mattresses and more. The plant is also eaten (playfully called the "lake banana") and applied as medicine, and its flowers are used to make tea.

"There was something very haunting and appealing about this wide array of creation from a single material," said Amorós, whose art often draws inspiration from Peruvian cultural legacies and communities.

"The structure of the totora is cellular. It's a very hearty, stable material that's also flexible but prevents kinking," explained Vranich. "People often used to make skis with just a single piece of wood. Nowadays, they replicate the interior form of a cross-section of totora."

To build the islands, each of which is home to two to six families, the Uros first gather large blocks of totora roots, which often float to the surface during the rainy season. Multiple blocks are pulled together, and the roots and reeds mix naturally to form a layer about 1-2m thick, called khili.

To make sure the islands do not drift away, eucalyptus rods are stuck into the bottom of the lake as anchors and are tied to the root blocks using rope. Every 15 to 20 days, the totora reeds rot and need to be replenished with fresh ones. It's a laborious, endless cycle that is essential to the islands and the Uros' survival on them. "What struck me the most was how the islands and homes are in a constant state of flux, of creation and decay," said Amorós. "This ephemerality is magical."

Today, solar panels power bedroom lights and small TVs; a radio station operates on the main island; and Uros offer their homes or private hospedajes (lodges) on Airbnb.

"They already have called us from Lima, saying that we're in the process of becoming an official wonder of the world," he said.

Whether or not that happens, it's evident that these modern changes and tourism have altered the Uros' life on the lake. One thing remains certain, though: as long as there is totora growing at Lake Titicaca, the islands' rooted foundation will stay the same.

BBC

[solarpunkbusiness]

Dam Chan Nguyen saves dead and dying computers.

When he first started working two decades ago in Nhat Tao market, Ho Chi Minh City’s biggest informal recycling market, he usually salvaged computers with bulky monitors and heavy processors. Now he works mostly with laptops and the occasional MacBook.

But the central tenet of his work hasn’t changed: Nothing goes to waste. What can be fixed is fixed. What can be salvaged gets re-used elsewhere. What’s left is sold as scrap.

“We utilize everything possible,”

Bao Loc eats his lunch in his shop packed with refurbished gear motors in Nhat Tao market, the largest informal recycling market in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Monday, Jan. 29, 2024. AP/Jae C. Hong

A Buddha head statue sits atop used electronic devices while shoppers browse for items at Nhat Tao Market, the largest informal recycling market in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Tu Chi Vy tiptoes through his shop packed with refurbished motors in Nhat Tao Market, the largest informal recycling market in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, on Monday, Jan. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Hoan moved to Ho Chi Minh City over a decade ago from the coastal Binh Dinh province in central Vietnam to try to escape poverty. She wakes every day at 4 a.m. in the tiny room she shares with two other people. She pushes her scrap cart—her biggest investment, costing $40—around Nhat Tao market from 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., collecting scrap from shop owners.

Electronic waste is the most valuable and she still remembers the time somebody sold her an old refrigerator. But all waste, ranging from aluminum or iron to the ubiquitous plastic and paper, has some value. On rare good days, she can collect up to 30 kilograms and make around $8.

She rarely takes breaks, but sometimes stops for water out of exhaustion from pushing the heavy cart around in extreme heat. At those times, she enjoys reading Doraemon comics—Japanese comic books about a time-traveling robotic cat—that she finds on her routes or gets as gifts from those who know of her fondness for the comics.

“I have to devote myself to this job as it’s my only option,” she said.

[chaoticbug]

Part of my job for the last 9 months was analyzing far right content to understand how they push conspiracy theories and motivate their voters and I have one major takeaway.

By eroding the trust in news media and journalists, Trump created what was essentially an alternate reality of people where extremists created their own "news media" filled with right wing ideology as the "only trusted news source"

If you thought Fox News was bad, you have never had to bear witness the awfulness of Real America's Voice or One America News. These are places where I swear to god a daily part of their news show is to sell you "medical emergency kits" with ivermectin in it because "you never know when the next medical emergency will happen" implying that the government will intentionally try and poison it's citizens if they have proper health insurance. They say the FBI is lying to you about crime statistics, they tell you every crime is being committed by illegal immigrants. They lie about the economy and tell you to invest in gold if you want have any money in the future. They say constantly that Trump's trials were a conspiracy against rights against him to be used as way to start to round up anyone who supports him.

The amount of times that Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro would claim that they "went to prison so you didn't have to" was immeasurable. These people committed crimes and were held accountable and twisted it to say they were victims "protecting the American people"

There are thousands of unhinged right wing podcasts that stream for hours every day on a site called Rumble which I guarantee most of you have never heard of. These shows get hundreds of thousands of views daily. And they legitimize themselves by having sitting congressmen and senators on their shows frequently along with "experts" from right wing policy groups you have never even heard of. Then, they legitimize each other by showing up on each others podcasts.

All this to say is that there are hundreds of thousands of people who only get their news and any information here. These are people who will praise Trump's "they're eating the dogs line" because it was memorable and therefore it means he won the debate. This alternative media market has insulated these people from ever seeing the truth. It is impossible to convince someone of something if they are in the most tightly held echo chamber where all they hear are lies and they are being told anything other than this specific "alternative media" is lying to you.

Simply put, there is no left wing alternative to this. These people live in an alternate reality where the truth has been drowned out. We need to create that left wing alternative to bring truth back

[ericdarkgoat]

Know your CEO

According to the UN report this people control 50% of the seeds in the world are

Bayer: Bill Anderson, Leverkusen Germany

Corteva: Chuck Magro, bloombergs NY USA

ChemChina: Ren Jianxin, ?

Limagrain: Emmanuel Goujon, Lyon France

And they manipulate farms in a monopolistic cartel. They limit the way to buy or sell seeds across the world. 80% of poor people are also living on agriculture.

[bboan]

Revolusi Cina dan Dr. Sun Yat Sen

Dr. Sun Yat Sen

Dr. Sun Yat Sen adalah seorang revolusioner yang bercita-cita membebaskan Tiongkok dari penindasan. Perjuangannya dimulai di Honolulu, saat ia berusia 18 tahun, dengan menyadarkan rakyat mengenai penderitaan mereka di bawah pemerintahan Manchu. Di sana, ia mengkritik praktik-praktik tradisional dan keyakinan agama yang dianggapnya sebagai takhayul, bahkan menghancurkan arca yang disembah penduduk. Aksi ini membuatnya dikucilkan dan meninggalkan tanah kelahirannya pada tahun 1884, bersamaan dengan pecahnya Perang Tiongkok-Prancis. Meski Tiongkok memenangkan perang, mereka harus menyerahkan wilayah Annam kepada Prancis melalui Perjanjian Tien Tsin pada 1885. Kekalahan diplomatis ini memicu tekad Dr. Sun Yat Sen untuk menggulingkan Dinasti Qing.

Walaupun tengah menuntut ilmu kedokteran di Amerika, Dr. Sun Yat Sen tidak menghentikan aktivitas politiknya. Ia mendirikan organisasi revolusioner, Hung Chung Hsiu, untuk mempercepat jatuhnya pemerintahan Manchu. Pada 1895, ia kembali ke Tiongkok untuk menghimpun dana dari komunitas Tionghoa perantauan (overseas Chinese). Kemudian, pada 1905 di Jepang, ia mendirikan T'ung Meng Hui (Chinese Revolutionary Alliance) untuk menyebarkan gagasannya, yakni "Tiga Prinsip Rakyat" (San Min Zhu Yi): nasionalisme, demokrasi, dan kesejahteraan rakyat.

Aliansi Revolusioner T'ung Meng Hui

Pada tahun 1906, Dr. Sun Yat Sen mengunjungi Penang dan mendirikan cabang T'ung Meng Hui di sana. Melalui organisasi ini, ia terus berpidato kepada komunitas Tionghoa perantauan tentang perlunya menggulingkan pemerintahan Manchu, yang ia anggap sebagai kekuatan asing dari suku Manchu yang mendominasi etnis Han. Dalam pidatonya di Penang tahun 1907, ia menekankan bahwa bangsa Manchu menindas rakyat Tionghoa dan tunduk pada kekuatan asing seperti Inggris, Prancis, Rusia, dan Jepang. Ia menyerukan perlunya bangkit melawan penindasan untuk mencegah Tiongkok jatuh sepenuhnya ke tangan negara-negara asing.

Puncak perjuangannya terjadi pada Revolusi Xinhai, yang dimulai pada 10 Oktober 1911 (Double Ten) dengan pemberontakan di Wuchang. Revolusi ini memproklamasikan berdirinya Republik Tiongkok pada 1 Januari 1912. Wilayah republik baru ini hanya mencakup Tiongkok Selatan, sementara Tiongkok Utara tetap berada di bawah kendali Kaisar Pu Yi dari Dinasti Qing. Revolusi Xinhai menandai berakhirnya kekuasaan dinasti kekaisaran terakhir di Tiongkok setelah lebih dari 2.000 tahun pemerintahan kekaisaran.

Revolusi ini lahir dari ketidakpuasan rakyat terhadap Dinasti Qing yang gagal mempertahankan kedaulatan negara dari pengaruh asing. Kekalahan dalam Perang Opium dan Perang Tiongkok-Jepang, serta serangkaian perjanjian yang merugikan, membuat rakyat kehilangan kepercayaan pada pemerintahan Qing. Selain itu, upaya reformasi seperti Reformasi Seratus Hari dianggap terlambat dan tidak cukup untuk mengatasi masalah sosial dan ekonomi yang parah.

Setelah Dinasti Qing runtuh, Sun Yat Sen meletakkan dasar bagi Republik Tiongkok yang modern, berbasis pada prinsip-prinsip nasionalisme, demokrasi, dan kesejahteraan rakyat. Namun, transisi menuju republik tidak berjalan mulus. Setelah Sun Yat Sen wafat pada tahun 1925, Tiongkok mengalami gejolak politik akibat perebutan kekuasaan antara Kuomintang (KMT) dan Partai Komunis Tiongkok (PKT). Meskipun demikian, Revolusi Xinhai tetap dikenang sebagai tonggak penting dalam sejarah Tiongkok, membuka jalan bagi era baru tanpa pemerintahan kekaisaran.

Berikut beberapa peninggalan dari peristiwa Revolusi Xinhai :

1. Republik Tiongkok: Pendirian Republik Tiongkok pada tahun 1912 sebagai hasil dari Revolusi Xinhai menandai berakhirnya sistem kekaisaran yang telah berlangsung selama lebih dari dua milenium. Sistem republik menggantikan kekuasaan dinasti, meskipun pemerintahan republik ini menghadapi banyak tantangan, seperti konflik internal, perang saudara, dan ancaman dari kekuatan asing.

2. Konstitusi Republik: Salah satu warisan penting dari era ini adalah upaya untuk membentuk sistem pemerintahan berbasis konstitusi. Konstitusi sementara 1912 merupakan dokumen penting yang mengatur struktur dasar pemerintahan republik, meskipun implementasinya mengalami kendala karena konflik politik yang terus berlangsung.

3. Kuomintang (KMT): Partai Nasionalis Tiongkok atau Kuomintang, yang didirikan oleh Dr. Sun Yat Sen, menjadi salah satu kekuatan politik utama selama periode ini. KMT berperan dalam menyatukan Tiongkok melalui Ekspedisi Utara dan memerintah negara hingga awal Perang Saudara Tiongkok.

Sumber :

https://www.jstor.org/stable/24572067

[priafey]

things the US needs to address:

the collective psychosis that leads people to make posts like these