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:

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 10-person Board. Each of its five Programmes has an Advisory Committee. Members of the Board 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
  2 Administrative Staff
  2 Communication Staff

Based at WIEGO Ltd. Office
5 Administrative Staff

Based in Different Countries:
   5 Programme Directors
   2 Research Coordinators
   2 Regional Advisors

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.

How is WIEGO Structured and Governed?

The WIEGO network was founded in April 1997 by a group of ten activists, researchers, and development professionals who had worked on the informal economy for many years and shared the same concern: namely, that the working poor in the informal economy, especially women, are not well understood, valued, or supported in policy circles or by the international development community. Until mid-2007, when WIEGO was registered in the UK, it functioned as an unincorporated international network.

Membership
The founders of WIEGO decided, at the outset, that the network should build alliances with and draw its membership from three broad constituencies: membership-based organizations of informal workers such as cooperatives, unions and associations; researchers and statisticians who carry out research, data collection, or data analysis on the informal economy; and professionals from development agencies (inter-governmental, governmental, and non-governmental) who provide services to or shape policies towards the informal workforce.

Membership-based organizations of informal workers who are active in WIEGO are invited to become Institutional Members of WIEGO. Individuals from the other two constituencies who are active in WIEGO are invited to become Individual Members of WIEGO. As of late 2008, the WIEGO network had 120 Members – 20 Institutional and 100 Individual Members - from 30 countries, as well as several hundred Associates from another 50 countries who have participated in WIEGO activities.

Governance
Since it was founded in 1997, WIEGO has been governed by a 10-person Board (originally called a Steering Committee) drawn from our three constituencies. The Board has two committees: a Management (or executive) Committee and a Financial Committee. Each of our Programmes has an international Advisory Committee also drawn from our three constituencies.

In April 2006, the WIEGO General Assembly ratified a Constitution which detailed the roles and responsibilities of the Membership and of the Board, Committees, and staff of WIEGO. The Constitution also details the composition of the Board, the terms of Board membership, and the nomination process for selecting new Board members. When WIEGO was registered in the UK in 2007, the principles enshrined in our Constitution were incorporated into our Articles of Association and Memorandum of Understanding in the UK. In late 2008, WIEGO Ltd. applied for charitable status in the UK.

Staff
In terms of core staff, as of late 2009, WIEGO had a director for each of our five Programmes, two research coordinators, two regional advisors, and a global projects director, who are based in six countries around the world; an international coordinator, operations manager, administrative assistant, communication officer, and web officer based in the Secretariat at Harvard University; an operations manager/membership support coordinator, company secretary, financial controller, financial administrator, and event planner-administrator based in the WIEGO Ltd. office in Manchester, UK; and three communication staff based in Canada. In addition, WIEGO has two sector specialists under our global project on "Inclusive Urban Planning for the Working Poor". Only four of the 25 core staff work full-time for WIEGO; the rest of the core staff work full-time for WIEGO; the rest of the core staff and all of the project staff work part-time for WIEGO.

Institutional and Financial
In July 2007, WIEGO was registered as a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee in the UK. Prior to registration in the UK, WIEGO had two fiscal sponsors: Harvard University for the funds that covered the Secretariat and related costs; and the Tides Center for other funds. While the vast majority of our funds will now be routed through WIEGO Ltd., we will maintain an account at Harvard University to handle the funds that cover costs related to our Secretariat at the Harvard Kennedy School where our international coordinator is on the faculty. Once we incorporated in the UK, we began closing our accounts with the Tides Center. WIEGO Ltd. banks with the Royal Bank of Scotland in Manchester.

During the fiscal year ending 31st March 2008, we had two grants at the Tides Center (one from the Ford Foundation for an international conference of waste picker organizations, the other from the Canadian International Development Research Centre for core WIEGO costs); two grants at Harvard University (one from the Ford Foundation for core WIEGO costs, and a supplemental unsolicited grant from the Ford Foundation for fund-raising and communication costs); and the first grant to our WIEGO Ltd. account from Oxfam Novib. By the end of the calendar year 2008, we had three grants at WIEGO Ltd: the existing two-year grant from Oxfam Novib, a four-year grant from Sida, and a five-year grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The WIEGO accounts at Harvard University are audited each year as part of the annual financial audit of Harvard University; and our accounts at the Tides Center were audited each year as part of the annual financial audit of the Tides Center as a whole. The accounts at WIEGO Ltd. have and will be audited each year by an external auditor.

The WIEGO management and financial systems in the US were reviewed in December 2007 as part of a pre-grant inquiry by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). Our financial and management systems in both the US and UK were reviewed in July and August 2008 by KPMG as part of a pre-grant inquiry by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Both reviews determined that our financial and management systems were sound; and both organizations subsequently made grants to 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.

*Esta página disponible en Español.