Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) is a global research-policy network that seeks to improve the status of the working poor, especially women, in the informal economy. It does so by highlighting the size, composition, characteristics, and contribution of the informal economy through improved statistics and research; by helping to strengthen member-based organizations informal workers; and by promoting policy dialogues and processes that include representatives of informal worker organizations. The common motivation for those who join the network is the relative lack of recognition, understanding, and support for the working poor in the informal economy, especially women, by policy makers, economic planners, and the international development community.
The Members and Associates of the WIEGO network, including the members of its Steering Committee and Advisory Committees, are drawn from its three constituencies:
- member-based organizations of informal workers;
- research, statistical, and academic institutions; and
- international development agencies (non-governmental and inter-governmental).
Interview with Marty Chen |
 India Law Project WebsiteWIEGO is coordinating an international project on law and the informal economy. India has been selected for carrying out a pilot study in the first year of the project. |
 WIEGO Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) for Informal Workers, Ghana: new annotated bibliographies
Case Study on Social Protection in the Informal Economy: The Ghana National Health Insurance Scheme Draft Document, Laura Alfers July 2009 (pdf - 1.75 MB) |
Informal Economy in the News
 |
Worldwide Impact of the Global Recession on the Working Poor in the Informal Economy “More and more workers are competing for their sliver of a shrinking informal economy pie” |
 |
Denmark - United Nations Climate Change Conference December 7-18, 2009 In Copenhagen, waste pickers gathered to advocate for alternative funding mechanisms to support fair and just solutions to climate change. |
Pakistan:: Home-Based Workers Struggle to Climb Out of Poverty. Zofeen Ebrahim, IPS, Jan 25, 2010.
United States, New York City - In the Shadows, Day Laborers Left Homeless as Work Vanishes. Fernanda Santos, New York Times, Jan 2, 2010.
With their isolation and day-to-day existence, the laborers are perhaps the most invisible and hardest-to-reach victims of the recession, advocates and city officials say.
Honduras - Anbody Seen Pati? By Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times, Dec. 26, 2009.
The recession in the U.S. is felt at a grass-roots level in Honduras.