Making Home-based Work Environments Safer, Healthier and Productive: Incorporating Needs of Home-based Workers in City Plans and Policies (Brief 3)

This brief was created by City Collab as a part of WIEGO’s documentation of Mahila Housing Trust’s (MHT) work to capture insights on their work that has had wide ranging impacts on the wellbeing and economic productivity of home-based workers. This brief on amplifying voices of home-based workers in governance processes is the third thematic brief in the ‘Incorporating the needs of the home-based workers in city plans and policies’ category.

In India, common citizens, especially the poor are not given a formal platform to inform city-level policies that directly impact them. Moreover, complex plans and statutory frameworks devised by the government are technical in nature and difficult to decipher. With complete lack of knowledge of planning processes, members of low-income communities cannot approach local governing bodies to make even basic demands.

MHT has worked over 25 years to empower women through self-organization and has instituted Community Action Groups (CAGs) in low-income communities across India. These groups represent the interests of their communities with local councillors and city governments.