Federation of Informal Workers' Organization of Nigeria

Work in the informal economy is often distinguished by small or undefined workplaces, unsafe and unhealthy working, low levels of skills and productivity, low or irregular incomes, long working hours and lack of access to information, markets, finance, training and technology. The frequent complaints among informal workers include arbitrary taxation, absence of social protection, poor access to the services of formal financial institutions, poor occupational health and safety awareness and the consequent lack of the most rudimentary personal protection at work, lack of well-structured -technical training and retraining in new production processes and technologies, lack of access to work-spaces with basic infrastructures among others. The Federation of informal workers’ Organizations of Nigeria IWON) was launched in June 2010 by Abuja Federal Federal Capital Territory (fct) by 24 informal workers’ organizations drawn from 7 states of the federation. Since then, FIWON has sought to build human and material capacities for representation of informal works in decision-making public institutions more qualitative and effective participation in nNigeria’sdemocratic processes, and enactment of policies to address pervasive development problems in the Nigerian informal economy. FIWON has evolved as a common platform based on shared problems and aspirations of millions of working people, helping to blunt the edge of divisive polarizations which Nigerian political processes engender. FIWON provides an important democratic space based on which private, public, and social sector partnerships could be forged to address urgent human and development problems that affect the majority of working Nigerians.