COVID-19 and the Informal Economy

Martha (Marty) Chen is a Lecturer in Urban Planning and Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and Co-Founder, International Coordinator Emeritus and board member of the global network Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO). An experienced development practitioner and scholar, her areas of specialization are employment, gender, and poverty with a focus on the informal economy. Before joining Harvard in 1987, she had two decades of resident experience working in Bangladesh (with the NGO BRAC) and in India (as field representative of Oxfam America). Currently, she is chair of the boards of BRAC Global and the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU WIDER). Michael Rogan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics and Economic History as well as the Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU), both at Rhodes University in South Africa. Since 2011, he has been a research associate in the global research-policy-action network Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO). He has published widely on topics such as informal employment, gender, poverty, food security, education, and skills development. His focus is largely on developing and middle-income countries where he has worked with various government departments, non-profit organisations, and national statistics offices. Kunal Sen is Director of UNU-WIDER, Helsinki, Finland, and Professor of Development Economics, Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, UK (on leave). He has over three decades of experience in academic and applied development economics research. He has performed extensive research on the political economy of growth and development, international finance, the dynamics of poverty, social exclusion, female labour force participation, and the informal sector in developing economies. His research has focused on India, East Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. He was awarded the Sanjaya Lall Prize in 2006 and the Dudley Seers Prize in 2003 for his publications.