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The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the role and practices of informal waste pickers and the implications for waste management policy in urban contexts of the Global South.

Qualitative case studies were used, including interviews, observations and document analyses. The authors compared informal waste management in two cities of the Global South: Accra (Ghana) and Porto Alegre (Brazil).

The analysis points out that informal waste pickers play a crucial role in the implementation of waste policies in both cities, despite differing economic, social and institutional contexts. The study of the waste management system also points to multiple connections between informal and formal parts of the economy. Although the informal waste pickers are integral to the waste management systems, their economically disadvantaged position excludes them from the formal labour market. Faced with these challenges, they develop creative solutions to guarantee their livelihood and gain more effective collective voice.

The comparison of two case studies, conducted about the same social phenomenon in two different economic, institutional and social contexts, has limited generalisability but is theoretically and practically important.

The findings are relevant to policy-makers who deal with urban waste management and for organisations who develop support actions for informal workers.

The authors draw on a comparison of qualitative case studies to explore the multidimensionality of the waste picker’s phenomenon. This paper sparks discussion among scholars and experts who study the informal economy from different perspectives, in this case bridging insights from sociology and victimology.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the process that occurs within public employment offices (PEOs) and its consequences for unemployed people. Specifically, it analysed some practices needed to implement activation programmes developed in some PEO in Lombardy (Italy) and the role of front-line officers, promoting a dialogue between the literature on activation policies on one hand and the literature on street-level bureaucracy on the other.

The fieldwork has been conducted in Lombardy, which is one of most economically developed areas both in Italy and in Europe. The empirical research integrated quantitative and qualitative research tools; specifically a CATI survey of 994 persons; participant and non-participant observations, semi-structured interviews, and an analysis of documents in four PEOs.

The paper describes and analyses both practices needed to implement activation programmes and the perceptions of the social actors (unemployed people and front-line officers) who build and address these practices daily. Specifically, the attention is focussed on the different forms of discretion used by PEOs’ front-line officers and a mix of technical, relational and psychological support received in the PEOs. Moreover, the authors noticed that the front-line officers’ discretion seemed to be more limited in those parts of the activation process in which it should be more relevant, that is, the identification of training courses aimed at increasing unemployed workers’ skills. Notwithstanding these limits, many users expressed positive opinions of these courses, which could be explained by secondary functions of training courses.

The qualitative portion of the fieldwork has limited generalisability because it focussed on few PEOs.

The findings are relevant to policy makers who deal with activation policies and to public and private organisations that implement those policies.

Many studies have analysed the implementation of the welfare-to-work model that has oriented the reforms of labour market activation policies in most countries, focussing on the more tangible outcomes (essentially their efficacy in terms of re-employment rates). A growing stream of recent literature has begun to place more attention on the non-economic consequences of activation programmes, focussing mainly on countries with quite a long tradition of activation policies while remaining scant in countries where the implementation of activation programmes is still fragmented and more recent (like Italy). This paper aims to begin filling this gap by improving the knowledge on some non-economic consequences of activation programmes, focussing on user-officer relations and on daily practices in PEOs.

Informal street vending is traditionally widespread and studied concerning developing countries. Nevertheless, recently, interest in the study of this practice has also increased regarding specific developed countries. The aim of the article is to contribute to overcoming the tendency to investigate this informal economy sector with different analytical lenses between the global South and global North and to highlight the usefulness of analyzing the phenomenon from a comparative perspective.

Therefore, the article represents a comparative review of the existing literature on informal street vending considering both the global South and global North.

The analysis revealed similarities and differences in the characteristics the phenomenon assumes in the two areas of the world while at the same time, showing how there are aspects mainly explored in the literature of southern countries and little explored in the literature of northern countries and vice-versa.

This analytical attempt allows us to highlight any gaps present in the literature, which may represent the basis for future comparative research on the topic. Comparative research will improve both theoretical and empirical knowledge of the phenomenon.

On the one hand, the article represents an innovative literature review attempt, as it explicitly compares the street vending between developing and developed countries. On the other hand, it represents the first academic contribution to review street vending in the global North.