Working Conditions

Dual Purpose Loans

When businesses receiving loans from microfinance institutions have children working for them, MFIs can provide dual purpose loans: as with regular loans, these provide basic financing for improving the business. As well, they provide additional financing to improve the working conditions and learning opportunities of working children. The dual-purpose loans meet micro finance best practice standards.

Code of Conduct

Business owners and working children helped develop a code of conduct, a set of minimum standards covering conditions connected to the children’s work. Each PPIC-Work partner has negotiated a slightly different code of conduct, adapted to local conditions and industries. The codes include limitations on the number of hours a child may work and the types of tasks a child may be called upon to perform. The code of conduct is integrated into the loan contract and is monitored by loan officers during their routine visits to businesses.

Assessing and Mitigating Hazards

Loan officers are trained to identify, analyze and mitigate hazards within workplaces. They work in collaboration with business owners to find mutually agreeable changes that improve safety without compromising business performance for the workplace owner. The costs of workplace improvements are incorporated into the dual purpose loans.