1. Disadvantaged youth in developing countries

The category “disadvantaged youth' refers to a common set of economic, social and cultural aspects and seems to greatly increase in complexity when it intersects other categories such as gender distinctions, ethnic affiliation and the urban v. rural regional specificities.

According to Corval(1984), the category 'disadvantaged youth' in developing countries refers to:

“...socially and economically disadvantaged young persons, who have either never entered school or have dropped out early in their lives, do not possess a qualified and relatively permanent occupation and have not had access to educational and training opportunities.” (p.3)

Corval(1984) adds to this definition a more detailed description of the social and cultural situation of youth in developing countries. Thus, he points to the fact that besides being greatly determined by economic and demographic factors, the behaviour of socially disadvantaged youth is also a function of cultural values and attitudes instilled by their families, or developed as a result of negative experiences they have had, such as dropping out of school or recurrent unemployment. Altogether, these experiences bring them to adopt negative attitudes towards life, lower their expectations and self-esteem besides triggering in them a feeling of powerlessness.

Family working patterns also have an impact on disadvantaged youth to the extent that they provide them with a model of people who have been relatively unsuccessful themselves. Nevertheless, according to Corval(1984) “work continues to be a sort of passport for young people to obtain community recognition, to become independent from the family and to finance their material survival and eventually raise a family.”(p.8).

Gender and ethnic issues

The 'disadvantaged youth' category in developing countries reveals some sharp distinctions when one analyzes some of the concrete training and working opportunities by gender. It can be argued that disadvantaged young women, besides corresponding to the general characteristics of disadvantaged youth previously laid out, also carry with them a culturally determined stigma which tends to hinder their social development.

Goodale (1989) points out differences between men and women in relation to the patterns of their working lives and shows how the type of training available has helped reproduce and reinforce the male-dominant structure encountered in the informal sectors of the labour market. According to the author:

“while certain problems may be experienced mutually, the solutions for improving the situation of women require quite different strategies. Consideration must be given to their specific position in the labour force and the barriers which inhibit them from gaining, on an equal basis with men, participation in, and benefits from, training and employment opportunities.” (p. 49).

The existing barriers can be translated into culturally rooted notions which circumscribe the social role of women to the household - marrying and having children. Consistent with this view is the one that education is less important or even desirable for girls. As women “are not expected to secure high-level employment, there is little need to provide them with higher education” (p.52). The major problem with this vicious circle is that women remain unable to qualify for many jobs, and families are unwilling to invest in the education of their daughters.

When exposed to education and training - be it formal or non-formal - young women face pre-conceived ideas of their career prospects on the part of teachers (Goodale, 1989) and are often 'streamed' into “courses which are essentially an extension of women's household and reproductive tasks - sewing, food processing, nutrition and home economics...” (p.52). Consequently, women have been consistently channelled into potentially less productive activities, which lead them to the restricted world of 'income-generating activities'. Men, on the contrary, often due to higher-status technical, managerial and entrepreneurial skills acquired during training, have been able to guarantee wage- or self-employment for themselves. Is there any evidence that this vicious circle will ever be broken?

On the one hand, Fluitman (1989b), based on the experience of LomTogo, claims that it is not so clear that increasing access to education and training, or widening the possibilities of acquiring a greater number of skills, will cause women in large numbers to take up activities believed to be in the 'male domain'. On the other hand, The World Bank (1991) reports on several successful programmes which trained women in non-traditional skills, and argues that deeply held social attitudes change slowly. Evidence from Grameen Bank's supportive intervention in Bangladesh - consisting in the provision of loans to finance women's micro-enterprises - provides another example of how culturally rooted male-female roles and attitudes in the family may be altered⁵ as a result of placing women in a privileged position (Yunus, 1991 and 1995). Furthermore, according to Fluitman (1989b), technical and managerial skills would not only improve women's economic activities, but also enhance their decision-making power at both the household and community level.

⁵With immediate benefits to the household - i.e. higher living standards for the children and overall better living conditions.

Nevertheless, the literature seems to indicate that there is still quite a lot of improvement to be achieved in the provision of equal training opportunities for young women (Goodale, 1989; World Bank, 1991; ILO, 1991; McGraph et al., 1995).

Finally, although women's access to equal training opportunities has been more discussed in the literature, in many countries, ethnic minorities are similarly discriminated against and prevented from taking on higher-paid activities (World Bank, 1991). Gender and ethnic issues should, therefore, be constantly brought to the front stage of discussions to the extent that they directly intersect with the disadvantaged youth training and work opportunities.

Urban and rural issues

Precarious living conditions in the rural areas and the low valorization of agricultural products have been pushing rural youth to urban centres during the past decades (Dirven, 1995; Corval 1984).

Life in rural areas is not so much characterized by unemployment as it is by underemployment in agriculture and other rural, non-farm activities which provide inhabitants with “a very meagre income and no possibilities for social and economic advancement.” (Corval 1984:p.6). Young people are usually the first to migrate to towns, as they face problems of access to land and credit. They are attracted by the possibility of higher salaries, better education and training opportunities in urban areas and often led by an illusion of better housing, health and transport services. In reality, newcomers are, usually:

“forced to settle in shanty-town areas of urban agglomerations where they eventually find some income-generating activity in the urban informal sector, by creating their own employment in trade and service activities that require relatively little capital or skills. Others have to accept wage employment which often means a wage below the legal minimum, job insecurity and poor social security.” (p.7)

Furthermore, the move to towns and cities on the part of the rural youth population has been followed by a change in their social and family patterns, and in some countries they suffer the effects of the disintegration of the extended family organization they used to enjoy in rural areas. This lack of support, added to the difficulties they usually encounter in the cities, often accounts for high rates of delinquency among adolescents in urban areas (Corval 1984; Blanc, 1994).

Turnham and Er (1990) and Goodale (1989) have also underlined the importance of social and family networks as facilitators in the process of finding wage-employment in small enterprises of the informal sector or engaging in a family business. It seems that disadvantaged youth, and specifically those coming from rural areas, find themselves more often deprived of this powerful resource.⁶

⁶According to Turnham (1993) recent studies have attested that the influence of uncertainty about getting a job in the urban areas is so powerful that rural people “usually do not move unless they have the promise of a job, even though that job is more than likely to be in the informal sector, probably at low earning” (p. 132).

Finally, rural exodus has been held responsible for massive urban underemployment and associated with increasing poverty in urban areas besides resulting in a mere displacement, rather than improvement, of youth's living and working conditions.

(introduction...)

The situation of disadvantaged youth can be better understood when approached from a global contextual perspective which takes into account: (1) unemployment trends and population growth, (2) the failing links between formal education, training and work; and (3) the expansion of the informal sector in most developing countries. We will now turn, briefly, to these macro issues.

2.1 Unemployment trends, demographic growth and approaches to tackle unemployment

It is difficult to provide accurate data on youth unemployment in developing countries during the 1970s and early 1980s, as available estimates of world unemployment faced the conceptual and design limitations imposed by the surveys. Urban unemployment has affected young people from a broad spectrum of socio-economic groups, both the well- and the less-well educated, though it has particularly stricken a substantial fraction of youth from low-income backgrounds and limited education. Turnham and Er (1990) explain that because “... the poor, ill-educated young person will often lack the connections, qualifications and/or cash for entry even into the small workshop or market stall as trainee or apprentice (...)” (p.26) this stratum of the population, unlike the better-off and educated youth, has had to scramble for work and to settle for casual employment with intermittent unemployment.

Other considerations by Turnham and Er (1990) include an estimate that urban unemployment, for the same examined period, has been substantially higher than rural unemployment.⁷ According to the authors, the labour force grew at 2.0 per cent per annum in developing countries over the period 1955-1985 and at a more rapid rate in the urban areas due to migration - a growth pattern expected to continue in the future. By way of contrast, the labour force growth in developed countries is expected to be at a rate of 0.4 per cent per annum only -a fifth of that in developing countries.

⁷Turnham and Er (1990) argue that “Even allowing for measurement problems, for example, by taking into account only the unemployment rates for men, urban unemployment is usually substantially higher than rural unemployment” (p.25).

Over 20 years ago Marc Blaug (1973:p.89) anticipated that unemployment would be heavily concentrated among those aged 15-25 as a result of population growth rates. In the early 1980s, Corval(1984) - providing data from ILO - claims that there were approximately 50 million youth unemployed, of which 37 million lived in developing countries. Since then, the sluggish economic development of the 1980s has only aggravated the problem of unemployment in developing countries, reducing even further young people's opportunities.

After analyzing the “mixed success and modest outreach” (Turnham, 1993:p.232) of piecemeal approaches to tackling unemployment in the previous decades - lending for rural development; public works programmes; micro-enterprise development; and human resources development - the author concludes that “there is no substitute for self-help efforts - spurred through a well functioning set of economic incentives - that are, or ought to be, a principal benefit of a well-considered employment strategy.” (p.232). Among a complex and integrated set of the comprehensive solutions to the employment problem, Turnham (1993) suggests: (i) population policy; (ii) macro-economic policies to promote labour-intensive growth;⁸ (iii) a special role for agriculture; and (iv) sector strategy and piecemeal reforms. In his view, piecemeal programmes “are especially relevant in helping to secure a broad spread of developmental benefits through what are, in effect, forms of asset redistribution.” (p.248). In this perspective, effective primary education - especially to a larger proportion of children in rural areas - is perceived as the most effective way of building up the assets of the poor.

⁸The author cites the example of certain East-Asian countries whose labour-intensive growth strategy involved trade, especially exports of manufactures, plus high savings, large investments in education, and a strong emphasis on competition and the use of market instruments. Nevertheless, the author cautions the transfer of the East-Asian growth model to other low-income countries as they might lack some of the favourable conditions that were present in these countries (Turnham, 1993: pp. 192-193).

Consistent with these views, educational and training considerations also appear intimately linked to labour policies in the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action (United Nations, 1995: pp.81-87). In this document, human resource development is associated with the facilitation of people's access to productive employment in today's rapidly changing global environment. Finally, some of the major guidelines for action in this area are particularly relevant to the training of disadvantaged youth, which should be conceived in a scenario of intersectoral co-operation and partnerships between governmental/non-governmental organizations, the private sector, local communities, religious groups and families.

2.2 The failing links between formal education, training and work in developing countries.

Formal Education

Despite their different empirical and contextual perspectives, the topic of 'youth work insertion' acquired a renewed focus for both developed and developing countries in the late 1980s. Whereas in the developed world it is still possible to speak of 'school-to-work' transition, in the developing world the issue seems to have escaped the realm and scope of formal schools, being better characterized as an 'out-of-school to work' concern.

In the United States, for instance, the focus remains on those who drop out before high school graduation. These are the young people more likely to have limited job and career prospects. Developed countries such as the USA are concerned about the economic future of their youth as they worry about higher productivity and a more competitive workforce. Subsequently, the school reforms aim at accommodating young people in an increasingly demanding formal (modem) sector, and provide for “a wider range of services that encompass academic skills, career guidance, work experience, job preparedness, and job placement assistance” (p. 1).⁹

⁹In parallel ways, many European countries are also examining the 'education-employment interface' and the problems faced by youth as a result of external economic forces (Fraser et al., 1993; Schwartz, 1994; Hastoy, 1989; OECD, 1985; OIT, 1979; CEDEFOP, 1979).

Available data for developing countries indicate that the path being followed by the majority of the disadvantaged youth population in these countries is far removed from the school-to-work transition previously described. As early as the mid 1970s, with the incapacity of the modem sector to absorb more entrants, the concern with the preparation of disadvantaged young people for the informal sector began to emerge in the literature (ILO and UNDP, 1972; Blaug, 1973). Assigning formal schools with this type of responsibility has been, from the very start, a controversial topic. It meant, on the one hand, their total restructuring to address different 'client' needs and, on the other hand, the provision of unequal educational opportunities. Thus, Hallak and Caillods (1981) claim that the links between formal education and the traditional urban sector were determined by a process of negative selection, in which precisely “the failures and rejects of the former (would) wind up in the latter” (p. 120).

A little over ten years ago, around one-third of youth in developing countries had no access to primary school and another one-third had dropped out without completing it (Corval 1984).¹⁰ Taking into account of the economic crisis and the population growth of the last decade in developing countries, earlier reported, these data suggest that developing countries face an urgent challenge: the insertion of their disadvantaged youth population - who lacks, or has received below-literacy levels of education - into the world of work. This complex situation is further aggravated by the fact that employers in the formal sector of developing countries offer resistance to training illiterate or semi-literate young people - perceived as lacking discipline, among other highly valued attitudes - and tend to recruit the skilled labour force from formal training systems whose clientele is required to have completed primary education¹¹. Primary-school dropouts - the bulk of disadvantaged youth - would, thus, remain in need of alternative training modalities.

¹⁰By the mid-1980s, Corval(1984) reports on official statistics that estimate approximately 200 million 12-17-year olds out of school - 137 million in South Asia; 41 million in Africa and 19 million in Latin America.

¹¹According to Middleton (1991), these formal systems have attained low levels of placement of trained workers in jobs that use their skills, which leads him to conclude that “scarce resources have been wasted” (p.85).

Formal training systems

In developing countries, formal vocational and technical training efforts have been associated with meeting the manpower needs of the formal sector, or the modem sector of the economy.

In some countries, training aims at fictitious jobs, whereas in other countries, where there is a demand for skilled workers, employers complain about the relevance and the quality of the training provided. Therefore, formal training systems have been considered inefficient on several counts and, to the extent that the attained outcomes have been unsatisfactory, they have often also been perceived as far from cost-effective (Hallak and Caillods, 1981; Fluitman, 1989b; Corval 1984). Besides being costly, Middleton (1991) claims that formal systems are elitist. The author points out that since access to secondary education is low, a large proportion of the students in vocational programmes are not poor.

“Formal training institutions usually suffer from relevance and quality problems; in any case, they reach few people in relation to the numbers entering the labour market, and an even smaller proportion of those already working; access of women to such training is extremely limited” (ILO, 1988:31).

Nevertheless, the ever-increasing reduction in wage-employment opportunities in the formal sector has led young people - including school-leavers - to “create their own employment as subsistence farmers or informal sector workers” (Fluitman, 1989b: 31). In this sense, existing training systems have been unable to contribute to either informal work-insertion, or skill upgrading of those already placed in the informal sector.

Although agreeing upon the inadequacies of the formal training systems in preparing informal sector workers, some authors have doubted their capacity to change orientation to fit the new requirements of the labour market. Hallak and Caillods' (1981) claim illustrates this point of view:

“The institutes operate with curricula, facilities, conditions and a work atmosphere very remote from the requirements of the traditional sector. Costs are generally high. It is improbable that it will be possible to completely change these institutes' orientation” (p. 119).

Other authors have put forth suggestions for improvement of these formal training systems. Corval(1984) argues that it would be inadvisable to create new institutions, and that the existing ones should be reformed to develop new functions. This author advocates that formal vocational programmes should set up different strategies for the illiterate and for those who have completed basic education. The aim would be to train the former group for current and new income-generating activities in the rural and urban informal sectors and not for the inexistent jobs in the modem sector. He adds that: “Training programmes for disadvantaged youth should also be oriented to making their access to a job easier. The specific sector of the economy in which the disadvantaged youth will normally work has to be clearly defined from the outset of the programme”(p.34). Fluitman (1989b) agrees that formal training systems need to be reoriented “to better reflect economic opportunities and respond more precisely to the training needs of people” (p.43). The author adds that priority should be given to training youth for self-employment in the informal sector and training people already working there. Similarly, ILO's report on the informal sector (1991) suggests both a lowering of entry requirements of the formal training systems and the addition of specialized courses for the non-structured sector. The ILO's viewpoint is conveyed in the following quote:

“It may be asking too much of formal training institutions to review their courses and their training methods so radically. However, they could be encouraged to introduce additional courses focused specially on workers and entrepreneurs in the informal sector” (p. 31).

All these suggestions seem to be pointing to the need for a gradual 'democratization' of formal training systems through an adaptation of curriculum contents and methods to the requirements of the informal sector so as to target disadvantaged youth's needs.

However, as long as the issue of the 'reorientation' of formal training systems is not settled, solutions have had to be sought elsewhere. As will be discussed later (Part II), non-formal training programmes have been increasing in numbers as an alternative response to the need for inserting the ill-educated disadvantaged youth into the world of work, and most likely in the informal sector.¹² A discussion on this sector in terms of its concepts, characteristics, and regulatory and comprehensive frameworks follows:

¹²Many authors (e.g. King, 1990) have also reported on a number of private profit- making - backstreet - training institutions that have been created in an attempt to attract school-leavers interested in informal-sector activities.

2.3 The informal sector

As disadvantaged young people increasingly undertake activities as self-employed in the informal sector, training seems more relevant when tuned to the requirements of this sector.

Concept and features

The term 'informal sector' was first applied in the 1972 Kenya Report, prepared by ILO (ILO and UNDP, 1972) referring to the non-structured sector that had emerged in the urban centres as a result of the incapacity of the modem sector to absorb new entrants. Engaging in activities that provided some means of a living represented, during the 1970s, the alternative to high open unemployment (Charmes, 1990). In 1990, it was estimated that the informal sector accounted for about 30 per cent of non-agricultural employment in Latin America and 30-60 per cent in some other countries, the higher figures being located mostly in Africa (p.30).¹³

¹³Data obtained from Charmes, J. (1990). “A critical review of concepts, definitions and studies in the informal sector”, ed. by Turnham et al.

During past decades, the concept of the informal sector was widely employed in the specialized literature and its changing and controversial nature has been analysed ever since. Hallak and Caillods (1981) described it as the 'traditional', 'non-formal' or 'unstructured' sector, “the residual sector in the towns, which absorbs surplus labour that is employed in neither the modem nor the intermediate sectors” (p. 17). These authors acknowledge the complexity of the concept 'traditional or informal sector' and underline its links with the formal sector in as far as it: “only acquires its meaning from the modem sector, and far from there being two very distinct sectors, there is a continuum of situations ranging from subsistence jobs to the highest-paid jobs in the modem sector, and opportunities of moving back and forth from one situation to another should remain open, if not be encouraged” (p.125).¹⁴

¹⁴The authors also point to the difficulty in studying an object whose nature is so heterogeneous and mobile.

Wallenborn (1989) shares the view that the informal sector has strong ties with the modem sectors of the economy, and claims that every measure intended for the informal sector “must be embedded within a global employment and development policy if it is to acquire a meaningful purpose and prospects of a future” (p.230). Yet, the author argues that the conventional economic theories have been largely confined to explaining the modem sector and prove to be of little or no utility to the informal sector. In his view, the lack of a theoretical framework to explain the informal sector, would leave the term 'informal sector' restricted to a 'communication metaphor', standing for “an increasingly problematic question which has so far attracted only unsatisfactory answers” (p.230).

Finally, Charmes (1990) draws attention to the fact that, for the sake of analysis, a dualist or dichotomized treatment of the informal sector is often necessary. This, however, would not mean that the interrelations which characterize an economy are to be ignored or misunderstood. Adopting this view, McLaughlin (1990), claims that informal-sector enterprises are usually characterized by:

(a) the use of family and unpaid labour (apprentices) and reliance on manual labour rather than on sophisticated machinery and equipment;

(b) flexibility, allowing people to enter and exit economic activities in response to market demand;

(c) simple and sometimes precarious facilities;

(d) the ability to improvise products from scrap materials;

(e) a willingness to operate businesses at times and locations convenient to customers; and

(f) a tendency to locate smaller markets, out of the reach of the larger firms.¹⁵

¹⁵Charmes (ed. by Turnham, et al., 1990) also mentions seven criteria for the informal sector set out by ILO (ILO; UNDP, 1972) and the conditions for membership of the informal sector, established by Sethuraman (1976).

Furthermore, the author argues that, although not a distinguishing feature, firm size can be a predictor of owner income and ability to expand. Whereas mini- or micro-enterprises usually only yield a means of survival for their operators through the production and commerce of goods and services of lower quality and prices, small and medium-sized enterprises are usually associated with higher income and higher educational levels of owner as well as with longer length of time in business (McLaughlin, 1990). The author also brings a distinction between 'pre-entrepreneurs', whose economic activities are so marginal as to hardly guarantee subsistence and 'entrepreneurs', whose activities yield profits and bear potential for expansion. Therefore, it can be observed that even though the activities of the poorest can be characterized as part of the informal sector, they do not make up the bulk of the informal sector (Charmes, 1990:p.15).

Often perceived as an exclusively urban phenomenon, a non-farm informal sector can also be observed in medium and small-sized towns and villages in the rural areas of developing countries. The entrepreneurs in the urban and rural environments operate businesses that reflect the consumer needs and tastes of their respective markets. Some of the urban informal-sector activities identified are: vehicle, radio, watch and refrigerator repairing, manufacturing of bricks and other construction materials and money-changing; whereas in the rural economy, the most common activities are blacksmithing, leather craft, water pump manufacture, and herbal medicine, to mention a few. It has been pointed out by McLaughlin (1990), however, that the incomes in the rural areas tend to trail behind those of their urban counterparts of similar size which, as previously mentioned, partly justifies migration to the urban centres.

Greater income inequalities due to variation in government benefits, treatment or subsidies along ethnic or regional lines have also been observed in the rural informal sector. Finally, the conventional training for the informal sector is the traditional apprenticeship system. According to McLaughlin (1990), apprenticeships¹⁶ “represent an effective and culturally appropriate system both for operating a viable business and for training young workers in a trade at the same time” (p. 158). Through this system, apprentices become fully qualified in a trade in exchange for a fee. At its completion, some are offered the possibility of wage-employment in the same workshop as a journeyman, whereas others will become self-employed. As will be discussed in Part II, some non-formal vocational interventions have successfully coordinated their training programmes with traditional apprenticeship systems.

¹⁶First established for training in the trades related to the farm economy, this system was later expanded to urban trades, where new opportunities for small-scale repairers and producers emerged.

Regulatory and comprehensive framework

Another aspect of the informal sector which has greatly contributed to the lack of support encountered on the part of national governments, and of a significant slice of public opinion, is the fact that it stays at the threshold of illegality. A regulatory framework for the informal sector should consist of a crucial protective measure for the growing numbers of disadvantaged youth who earn their living as street vendors of goods and services.

As synthesized by Wallenborn (1989), the informal sector encompasses numerous types of occupations, from survival income-generating activities to relatively profitable small and medium-sized enterprises, thus consisting of a very heterogeneous phenomenon at times including ventures “endeavouring to use illegal means to pursue legal goals” (p.229). At times, workers do find difficulty in abiding by the local laws, which contributes to the association between informal-sector activities and illegal practices. On the one hand, it has been argued that were they to comply with certain legalization requirements many of the micro-enterprises that assure their operator's livelihood would never survive. On the other hand, pre-entrepreneurs are aware of the fact that legalized operations enable them “to have access to some institutional support, such as credit, or to the protection of the law in such matters as enforcement of contract” (ILO, 1991:p.35). Therefore, the 'regulatory' dilemma can be summarized in the following quote:

“The progressive 'legalization' of the informal sector is clearly an essential requirement for its integration into society. But it is more likely to take place in a positive environment where the obstacles to entering legality are reduced to a minimum, where the costs of being legal are not prohibitive, and where there are clear benefits to becoming legal - i.e. where the public authorities are known to be (and seen to be) supporting rather than harassing the informal sector” (ILO, 1991: pp. 35-36).

The report on the International Labour Conference of 1991 (ILO, 1991) proposes a strategy for creating the conditions for the development of a more dynamic and better protected informal sector, which would contribute to its progressive integration into society. Comprehensive measures to be simultaneously pursued would consist of:

(1) improving the productive potential, and therefore of the employment- and income-generating capacity, of the informal sector;

(2) improving the welfare of the poorest groups;

(3) establishing an appropriate regulatory framework, including appropriate forms of social protection and regulation; and

(4) organizing informal sector producers and workers (ILO, 1991:p.25).

These comprehensive measures advocated by ILO (1991) can in turn be broken down into other piecemeal strategies. As can be noticed below, training is listed among the four piecemeal strategies, considered to be key aspects for the “improvement of the productive potential of the informal sector”. The four strategies are:

(a) market expansion through the enhancement of the demand for informal-sector products; which, in turn, can only be achieved through the qualitative improvement of goods and services;

(b) facilitating producers within the informal sector to obtain credit on the same terms as modem enterprises;

(c) access to training for improvement of skills and upgrading of technologies used in the informal sector; and, finally,

(d) improvement in the basic facilities and amenities of informal-sector premises.

What stands out from these listings is, first of all, the strong interdependence between comprehensive and piecemeal measures and, secondly, the intertwining nature of all piecemeal measures allowing training, alone, to have a direct or an indirect effect on all other three key objectives previously laid out.

The idea of the relative and interdependent power of training so far stressed by many authors is briefly summarized by Fluitman (1989b) in the following quote:

“Training does not create jobs other than for trainers and support staff. It is not the missing piece in the development puzzle. Interventions which address access to credit, technology, markets, etc., are often more crucial, at least in the opinion of informal sector operators. Training is to a large extent an instrument which causes other inputs to come to fruition” (p.37).

Finally, the perception of the interdependent role of training in the process of social development suggests, in turn, that a framework for the analysis and evaluation of non-formal training programmes should consider both the interrelationships between strategies and their insertion into broader comprehensive approaches.