I work for an investment shop that invests exclusively in frontier and developing markets. We spend as much time considering ESG and development outcomes as we do commercial return, and I can tell you point blank, the people in the countries where we work do not believe for one second it’s should be choice between no work and rubbish work - try telling a mother that has life changing injuries due to non existent safety standards that she should be grateful for the job regardless. You wouldn’t stand for it, so why should she?
On the Microfinance link you shared, while I have a lot of time for MFIs - they have played an important role in providing credit for the financially excluded, they are not a panacea. What you need is wholesale change at scale, at the heart of large businesses, as their supply chains are wide, deep and impact a huge number of individuals and MSMEs domestically and internationally. Where there’s no motivation for change at the management level, it’s in the hands of customers and suppliers to drive this by choosing to work with those companies that do get it. As I previously said, you’ll always have actors that don’t care, but that is a choice on their part, not an inevitability.
Edit: You might find the following of interest. This is the de facto standard in how “the world” currently thinks about building a more equitable future: