The Federation of Informal Organizations of Nigeria (FIWON), a body that lays claim to over 65 million working people nationwide says its newly-launched online directory provides members’ information and easy access for businesses hoping to reach them.
The directory offers information about FIWON members, personal details, training and background, address and current state of access to social protection services and the degree of formalization, the body says.
Mr. Emmanuel Agha, Director of FinClusive Limited, the technical partner to FIWON on the project says that the FIWON online directory would help businesses to digitally reach out to skilled and unskilled workers in the informal sector of the economy.
According to him, the FIWON directory “has unlocked the power of online marketing using our solutions to proactively reach out to new customers and engage existing ones. Our business solutions are customized to suit all advertising requirements of businesses. Be it attracting more local leads or reaching out to more customers by display advertising, findworkers powerful suite of business solutions will help you grow in the budget you have.”
According to figures from the statistics office, workers in the informal sectors of the economy constitute over 80% of the non-agricultural employment, FIWON says. While 60% of urban employment and over 90% of new jobs make up an estimated population of over 65 million working people, these are absent from decision making process, and are largely subject to policy inconsistency and arbitrariness.
FIWON added that the informal economy are made up of self employed workers, contributing family members and those moving from one form of jobs or location to another.
Comrade Gbenga Komolafe, Secretary General of the federation, said in addition that there are also some of those who are engaged in new flexible work arrangements and “who have found themselves at the periphery of the core enterprise or at the lowest end of the production value chain.”
Komolafe further explained that the mission of the organization is to make it easier for Nigerians to find relevant information on informal workers such as bricklayers, masons, carpenters, tailors, and other artisans in Nigeria.
Launched in Abuja in 2010, FIWON is a coalition of 24 organizations of informal workers drawn from eleven states of the federation. FIWON has evolved as a common platform based on shared problems and aspirations of millions of working people, providing an important democratic space on the basis of which private, public, and social sector partnerships could be forged to address urgent human and development problems that affect majority of working Nigerians especially in an informal economy, according to the umbrella body.
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