Cut through red tape
Bribery and bureaucracy are awesome hurdles for the small business person wishing to become legal. A study in Peru showed it took 461 days, 24 bribe demands and 120ft of paperwork laid end-to-end to legally register a small clothing workshop. The same process took under four hours in a town in the US.

Set up advice centres
Every day thousands of migrants swell the ranks of casual workers in Third World cities. Where competition between, for example, city-centre cigarette hawkers becomes so fierce that selling is barely profitable, alternatives or ways of diversifying could be suggested. Job-skill training, legal advice and promotion of social security schemes are other possibilities. Informal workers could not only exchange information but also share equipment and could act together as a more powerful lobbying force when dealing with ministries, police and other official bodies.