Education and awareness raising to encourage formalisation

To change the acceptability of participating in the informal economy, education and awareness raising initiatives can be used to reduce the asymmetry between formal and informal institutions. First, this chapter evaluates key issues to be considered when designing effective education and awareness raising campaigns, namely identifying a target group, the objectives, key messages, and how these messages need to overcome the neutralisation techniques that actors use to justify their actions, the channels to be used to convey messages and designing how its effectiveness will be evaluated. Following this, real-world campaigns are reviewed differentiated into four kinds by their key message and target group, namely campaigns that focus upon either the costs and risks of participation in the informal economy or benefits of formalisation targeted at either the suppliers of informal work or purchasers of informal goods and services.