By ASHEPA HSE News
Mr. Wilson Ronnie Odoom, President of the African Safety, Health and Environmental Professional Association (ASHEPA), has called on African governments, labour ministries, occupational health and safety regulators and labour law experts to urgently review national labour laws to include informal workers, who represent the majority of the continent’s workforce.
Speaking in an interview with ASHEPA HSE News, Mr. Odoom expressed serious concern that while Africa’s economies are largely driven by informal workers, many national workplace safety laws still focus mainly on formal workplaces such as factories, offices, mines, registered companies and public institutions. According to him, this has created a major legal and safety gap for millions of African workers who contribute daily to national development but remain outside the full protection of occupational health and safety legislation.
Mr. Odoom said the greater workforce in Africa is found in the informal work sector, yet the laws covering workplace safety in many countries do not adequately involve informal workers. He described this as a major concern for the continent, stressing that Africa cannot claim to protect its workforce when its labour laws do not cover the majority of its workers.
He noted that informal workers across Africa include market traders, street vendors, mechanics, artisans, commercial drivers, construction labourers, domestic workers, farmers, waste pickers, food vendors, hairdressers, small-scale manufacturers, apprentices, motorcycle riders, transport operators and many self-employed workers. These workers, he said, face daily risks such as unsafe machinery, poor ventilation, chemical exposure, fire hazards, road accidents, heat stress, poor sanitation, musculoskeletal injuries, falls, electrocution and long working hours, yet many of them lack structured access to safety training, inspection, compensation, accident reporting and preventive regulation.
According to Mr. Odoom, his concern became stronger after studying the percentages of informal employment in several African countries, many of which show that more than 70 percent of the workforce operates in the informal sector. He said the figures confirm that informal workers are not a small or marginal category, but the real backbone of many African economies.
Data adapted from the International Labour Organization and published by Our World in Data describes informal employment as work that lacks basic social or legal protection and employment benefits. The same source shows that informal employment remains extremely high across many African countries. For example, Niger recorded informal employment at about 98.49 percent of total employment in 2022, the Democratic Republic of Congo recorded about 96.76 percent in 2020. Benin recorded about 96.35 percent in 2022, while Madagascar recorded about 96.08 percent in 2022. Mali recorded about 95.42 percent in 2022, Uganda recorded about 95.15 percent in 2021, and Tanzania recorded about 93.58 percent in 2020.
The same data further shows that Nigeria recorded informal employment at about 93.18 percent in 2024, Togo recorded about 92.34 percent in 2022, Angola recorded about 92.21 percent in 2022, and Côte d’Ivoire recorded about 92.13 percent in 2022. Senegal recorded about 89.24 percent in 2024, Rwanda recorded about 84.27 percent in 2024, Egypt recorded about 71.33 percent in 2023, These figures, according to Mr. Odoom, demonstrate that any workplace safety law that does not clearly include informal workers is failing to address the reality of Africa’s labour market.
Mr. Odoom said that when a country has 70, 80, 90 or even more than 95 percent of its workforce in informal employment, any labour law that does not speak directly to informal workers is incomplete. He said such laws end up protecting a minority of workers while leaving the majority exposed to occupational hazards, economic vulnerability and unsafe working conditions.
The ASHEPA President stated that African leaders must move beyond the continuous reliance on inherited labour systems and post-colonial legal frameworks that were not designed around the realities of African economies. He explained that many laws adopted after independence were based on colonial administrative systems or foreign legal models built mainly around formal employer-employee relationships, registered companies and structured workplaces. However, the African workforce is heavily shaped by self-employment, family work, micro-enterprises, roadside businesses, farms, open markets, transport yards, workshops, domestic service and community-based enterprises.
Mr. Odoom said Africa needs labour laws that fix Africa’s workforce and not laws that ignore the people who keep the continent’s economies moving. He said the continent cannot continue to copy and paste post-colonial labour laws without asking whether those laws protect the workers who actually make up the majority of African employment. According to him, labour law reform must be based on the true structure of African economies, not on legal assumptions imported from societies where formal employment dominates.
He emphasised that workplace safety must not be treated as a privilege reserved for workers in registered companies, large factories, government offices or corporate institutions. He said a mechanic working by the roadside, a food vendor cooking in a crowded market, a farmer applying pesticides, a welder operating in a small workshop, a mason working on an informal construction site, a domestic worker in a private home, a trader in a market stall and a commercial driver on the road all face real occupational risks. These risks, he said, must be recognised by law.
Mr. Odoom stated that an injury suffered by an informal worker is still a workplace injury, a fire outbreak in a market is still a workplace disaster, chemical exposure in a small workshop is still an occupational health issue, and road crashes involving commercial transport workers are still part of the wider workplace safety challenge. He said the law must recognise these realities if Africa is serious about protecting its people.
He further explained that excluding informal workers from workplace safety systems affects not only individual workers but also families, communities and national economies. When informal workers are injured, they often lose their income immediately, struggle to pay medical bills, receive little or no compensation and place additional pressure on already vulnerable households. He said this cycle deepens poverty and weakens productivity across the continent.
Mr. Odoom advised African governments and labour law experts to begin a structured review of national labour laws with the aim of bringing informal workers into occupational health and safety frameworks. He said governments must legally recognise informal workers within safety laws and create practical systems for education, prevention, accident reporting, inspection, compensation and support. He added that these reforms must be designed in a way that supports informal workers rather than punishing or harassing them.
According to him, the answer is not to criminalise the informal economy but to make it safer, healthier, more productive and more legally recognised. He said African governments must work with local authorities, professional bodies, worker associations, market leaders, transport unions, artisan groups, trade unions, civil society organisations and occupational health and safety professionals to design practical safety systems that can work within informal settings.
He urged governments to introduce safety education in markets, transport terminals, farms, workshops, construction sites and small business communities. He also called for simple accident reporting systems that informal workers and local authorities can use, as well as community-based safety inspection models that involve local government officers, professional health and safety practitioners and informal worker representatives.
Mr. Odoom said fire safety, sanitation, emergency response, chemical handling, road safety, construction safety, electrical safety and public health must become major parts of informal sector regulation. He added that national systems must be created to track injuries, illnesses and deaths occurring in the informal economy, because without data, governments will continue to underestimate the scale of the problem.
The ASHEPA President called on African Union institutions, regional economic communities, ministries of employment, ministries of health, ministries of local government, occupational safety authorities, trade unions, professional bodies and civil society organisations to treat informal worker safety as a continental development priority. He said Africa cannot achieve sustainable development while millions of workers remain invisible within workplace safety systems.
Mr. Odoom said the continent talks frequently about industrialisation, youth employment, productivity and economic transformation, but must remember that a large share of Africa’s daily economy is carried by informal workers. He warned that failing to protect informal workers means weakening the very foundation of African development.
He particularly advised African labour law experts to take the issue up with their governments, parliaments and national policy institutions. He said labour law professionals have a responsibility to examine existing legislation, identify the gaps and advise governments on how to reform laws to include the majority of the workforce. He said this should not be treated as a side issue but as a central labour justice and occupational safety priority.
Mr. Odoom also appealed to citizens, professional associations, worker groups and national advocates across Africa to examine the labour laws of their respective countries and ask whether those laws truly cover the majority of the workforce. He said the conversation on labour protection must no longer be limited to formal employment, because the majority of African workers earn their living outside formal systems.
According to him, if the majority of workers in many African countries are informal workers, then the majority must be considered when labour laws are written, reviewed or enforced. He said African nationals must demand labour laws that reflect the realities of their countries and protect workers in the informal sector.
He concluded by saying that ASHEPA will continue to advocate for safer workplaces across all sectors, including the informal economy. He said Africa must build a new generation of labour and safety laws that are African in understanding, practical in design and inclusive in protection.
“No worker should be invisible before the law simply because he or she works informally. Africa must protect the people who carry its economy every day,” Mr. Odoom said.
