ESCAP organized a workshop on Informal Employment and Informal Sector Data Collection: Strategy, Tools and Advocacy for the three countries (Mongolia, Sri Lanka and Philippines), which were participating in the Development Account project "Interregional Cooperation on the Measurement of Informal Sector and Informal Employment," on 19-21 September 2007 in Bangkok.

The objectives of this technical workshop were:

• To enhance participants' understanding of the project objectives, the measurement issues it addresses, and the activities it proposes to undertake to meet the objectives;
• To assist participants in operationalizing the unified data collection strategy in order to improve measurement of the informal sector and informal employment in their specific country contexts.

Workshop sessions covered the following topics:

• Utilizing ongoing regular monthly/quarterly labour force surveys to (a) construct a frame of HUEMs, (b) estimate employment in HUEMs and, ultimately, in informal sector enterprises, and (c) estimate informal employment;
• Design of a HUEM survey including frame construction, sample design and questionnaire design;
• Tabulations and dissemination variables on informal sector employment and GDP estimates;
• Design of an advocacy/dissemination workshop on informal sector and informal employment.