About WIEGO: Origins and Mission*

What is WIEGO?

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.

Most activities of WIEGO fall under one of its five major Programmes: see Programme Areas:

• global markets
• organization and representation
• social protection
• statistics
• urban policies

The component activities under these Programmes involve some mix of research studies, data analysis, case study documentation, and policy dialogues. Conscious efforts are made to involve member-based organizations of informal workers in the identification, prioritization, and design of all activities; and to disseminate the findings, data, and case studies generated – and related lessons learned – as widely as possible. WIEGO’s Organization and Representation Programme also seeks to strengthen - and build networks of – member-based organizations of informal workers; and its Statistics Programme seeks to promote improved statistics and statistical analysis of the informal economy.

Who is WIEGO?

The WIEGO network is comprised of 150 active Members and several hundred Associates (who have participated in one WIEGO meeting or activity) from over 100 countries around the world. The Members and Associates of the WIEGO network are drawn from three broad constituencies: member-based organizations of informal workers; research, statistical, and academic institutions; and development agencies of various types (non-governmental and inter-governmental). Between them, the 20 member-based organizations in the WIEGO network have organized about 1 million informal workers.

The WIEGO network is governed by a 15-person Steering Committee. Each of its five Programmes has an Advisory Committee. Members of the Steering Committee and the five Advisory Committees are drawn from the three WIEGO constituencies.

WIEGO has the following (mostly part-time) paid staff:

Based at the WIEGO Secretariat:
1 Coordinator
3 Administrative Staff

Based in Different Countries:
5 Programme Directors
2 Research Coordinators

To carry out activities, WIEGO develops collaborative projects with Partners - either individuals or institutions. At any given time, WIEGO is likely to have on-going activities in 25 or more countries around the world.

For more details, see Who’s Who of WIEGO.

Why WIEGO?

There are some 550 million working poor earning less than US$ 1 per day. The vast majority of the working poor earn their living in the informal economy where, on average, earnings are low and risks are high. The founders of WIEGO believe that reducing poverty and inequality is not possible without raising the earnings and lowering the risks of those who work in the informal economy. However, over the past two decades, informal employment has persisted or grown in most countries of the world, emerging in unexpected places and in new guises.

WIEGO is part of a growing international movement in support of the working poor, especially women, in the informal economy. Much of the impetus and inspiration for this growing movement has come from the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) of India, a trade union of working poor women founded in India in 1972. In the 1990s, SEWA helped found two regional organizations of home-based workers (called HomeNet) in Southeast and South Asia; an international alliance of organizations of street vendors (called StreetNet International); and the WIEGO network. In 2002, together with HomeNet Thailand, the Ghana Trade Union Congress, the Nigerian Labour Congress, and StreetNet International, SEWA formed an international coordinating committee to identify and network organizations that are organizing informal workers.

In effect, WIEGO serves as a “think tank” for the SEWA-inspired international movement of organizations of informal workers. Together with its allies in this international movement, WIEGO seeks:

• to put work, workers, and workers’ organizations at the center of economic development policies and processes;
  
• to investigate how different groups of the working poor in the informal economy – especially women - are linked to the formal economy and to the global economy, and with what consequences;
  
• to investigate the quantity and quality of employment opportunities created by different patterns of economic growth and global integration; and
  
• to identify appropriate policies, regulations, and practices to manage and govern the employment arrangements of the working poor in the informal economy.

For more details, see Defining Features of WIEGO.

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