The lecture “Making the Invisible Count: How Informality Shapes Regional Performance, Resilience and Sustainable Development” was delivered as part of a thematic workshop within the Horizon Europe project INSEAI 2023. The event was held in a hybrid format, combining on-site participation at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) with online attendance, fostering international academic cooperation.

The event brought together researchers and policymakers interested in the links between informality, sustainability, and regional development in Europe.

The session was presented by PhD. Eduard Mihai Manta and Prof. Adriana AnaMaria Davidescu from the Bucharest University of Economic Studies (Romania). The lecture addressed a major blind spot in current sustainability assessments, showing that strong SDG scores often coexist with persistent labour-market duality and widespread informal economic activity.

Conceptually, the presentation distinguished between informal sector, informal employment, and the shadow economy, highlighting their distinct but overlapping links to key SDGs related to poverty, inequality, decent work, and institutional quality.

Empirically, the analysis integrated informality into a composite Sustainable Development Index (SDI) for 36 European countries, using Partial Least Squares modelling and alternative index specifications. The results demonstrated that excluding informality systematically distorts sustainability rankings, overstating performance in countries with large hidden economies.

Further econometric and machine-learning evidence showed that informality negatively affects sustainable development through weaker institutions, labour-market exclusion, and inequality. The lecture concluded with policy recommendations emphasising the need to integrate informality into SDG monitoring frameworks, strengthen statistical capacity, and support formalisation-oriented, place-based policies, with particular relevance for countries such as Romania.