WIEGO

Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) is a global research - policy network that states as its aim to improve the status of the working poor, especially women, in the informal economy. [1] Linked to the SEWA-inspired international movement of women in the informal economy, WIEGO has a diverse constituency cutting across the fields of action, research, and policy-making.

The WIEGO network was founded in April 1997 by a group of ten activists, researchers, and development practitioners, based around the globe, who worked on the informal economy and articulated a shared concern that the working poor, especially women, in the informal economy were not well understood, valued, or supported in policy circles or by the international development community.[2] Among the founders was Professor Martha Chen, a Harvard Lecturer in Public Policy[3] and currently WIEGO's International Coordinator. The founding steering committee chair was Indian civil rights leader Dr. Ela Bhatt.

The WIEGO secretariat is currently located at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

In July 2007, WIEGO was registered as a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee in the UK (WIEGO Ltd.) with a formal Constitution and Articles of Association.[4] In 2011, WIEGO was granted charity status by the Charity Commission for England and Wales (Registered Charity No. 1143510). [5]

Mission and Goals

WIEGO's stated mission: "WIEGO believes all workers should have equal economic opportunities and rights and be able to determine the conditions of their work and lives. WIEGO works to improve the status of the working poor, especially women, in the informal economy through increased organization and representation; improved statistics and research; more inclusive policy processes; and more equitable trade, labour, urban, and social protection policies."[6]

WIEGO’s objectives, as detailed in the Register of Charities, [5] are "to relieve poverty in particular the poverty of the working poor in the informal economy caused by low earnings, high risks, and adverse working environments and conditions associated with the informal economy worldwide (including non-standard or unprotected employment for formal firms)" by:

a) conducting and promoting research (making the useful results publicly.available) into the experiences and conditions of the working poor, the working environment and conditions within the informal economy, the wider policy and regulatory environments under which the informal workforce operates and the causes, effects and ways of addressing the poverty of the working poor within the informal economy;

b) advancing the education of policy decision-makers, the wider public, supporters of the working poor and the working poor themselves, in relation to the causes, effects and ways of addressing the poverty of the working poor within the informal economy;

c) helping organizations of the working poor to address the poverty of their members.

According to the Informal Waste Management Knowledge Hub,[7] WIEGO seeks to help the working poor in the informal economy, especially women, achieve increased:

Programmes and Activities

WIEGO supports working poor women by aiming to ensure they have adequate information, knowledge and tools and can mobilize around their rights, enhancing their safety and their earnings.[8]

Activities centre around five core programmes; special projects and initiatives are also undertaken.[9]

WIEGO does not set an agenda but rather support domestic workers, street vendors, waste pickers, garment workers, smallholder farmers and others are in articulating their own demands and participating directly in policy and planning processes.[8]

Specific Research and Action

WIEGO commissions research that focuses on improving statistics on, and analyzing policies relating to, the working poor who make their living in the informal economy.[11] Membership-based organizations (MBOs) of informal workers always involved in the identification, prioritization and design of WIEGO activities.

Impact of Global Recession

In 2009 and again in 2010, WIEGO coordinated Global Economic Crisis studies to determine how informal workers were being affected by the global economic downturn.[12] The study was executed by organizations involved in the global Inclusive Cities project,[13] which is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Two rounds of interviews and focus groups were conducted with 102 home-based workers, 63 street vendors and 54 waste pickers in 14 cities across Africa, Asia and Latin America. In 2009, 77 % of respondents reported their incomes had fallen in recent months, while 52% reported another decrease between mid-2009 and 2010.[12]

Findings from the first study, completed in 2009, are captured in "No Cushion to Fall Back On: The Global Economic Crisis and Informal Workers]".[12] Findings from the second study are found in "Coping with Crises: Lingering Recession, Rising Inflation, and the Informal Workforce"[13]ion=submit#" />

Domestic Workers' Rights

From 2009-2011, funding from the Government of Netherlands MDG3 Fund allowed WIEGO to assist domestic workers in their struggle for an international convention that would help secure their rights as workers. WIEGO helped establish the International Domestic Workers' Network (IDWN), and provided technical and strategic advice, research and capacity building, as well as assisting the IDWN in fund raising.[8] Such practical support allowed domestic workers to represent themselves at the International Labour Conference (ILC) in 2010 and 2011. On June 16, 2011 governments, employers and workers from around the world adopted the Convention and accompanying Recommendation on Decent Work for Domestic Workers (Convention 189) at the 100th ILC in Geneva, Switzerland.[8]

Structure

WIEGO represents a collaboration between membership-based organizations of workers in the informal economy, support non-governmental organizations, research and statistics institutions, national governments, and international development agencies.[14]

Since its inception, the WIEGO network has invited membership from, and formed alliances with, three constituencies:

  1. membership-based organizations of informal workers, such as cooperatives, unions and associations
  2. researchers and statisticians who carry out research, data collection, or data analysis on the informal economy[15]
  3. practitioners from development agencies (intergovernmental, governmental, non-governmental) who provide services to, or shape policies towards, the informal workforce

Membership-based organizations of informal workers that are actively involved with WIEGO are asked to become Institutional Members. Individuals from the other two constituencies who are involved with WIEGO can become Individual Members. As of March 2014, the WIEGO network had 172 Members – 33 Institutional and 139 Individual Members – from 40 countries. [14]

A 10-person Board of Directors governs the WIEGO network. Board members are drawn from WIEGO’s three constituencies. The Board has two committees: a Management (or executive) Committee and a Financial Committee.[14]

Key Funders

Notes

  1. ↑ The Hauser Institute for Civil Society at Harvard University. Programs
  2. ↑ Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing & Organizing (WIEGO)
  3. ↑ Harvard Kennedy School. Hauser Institute for Nonprofit Organizations. Martha Chen.
  4. ↑ Articles of Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO)
  5. 1 2 Charity Commission, England and Wales 1143510 - WOMEN IN INFORMAL EMPLOYMENT: GLOBALIZING AND ORGANIZING (WIEGO) LIMITED
  6. ↑ WIEGO Annual Report (April 2014 – March 2015). Cambridge, MA, USA: WIEGO pp.1
  7. ↑ Annepu, Ranjith (2011). Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing, WIEGO. Informal Waste Management Knowledge Hub.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Anne C. Bellows, Flávio Luiz Schieck Valente, Stefanie Lemke, María Daniela Núñez Burbano de Lara (2016). "Mobilizing poor working women for economic equality. Women in Informal Employment: Globalisation and Organizing (WIEGO)". Gender, Nutrition, and the Human Right to Adequate Food: Toward an Inclusive Framework. Routledge. p. 304-305.
  9. ↑ WIEGO. Core Programmes
  10. ↑ Addressing Urban Poverty, Reshaping Urban Planning. WIEGO’s Portal on Inclusive Urban Planning for Informal Workers.
  11. ↑ Hauser Centre
  12. 1 2 3 TUC (Trades Union Congress) (March 2011). "No cushion to fall back on: Informal employment worldwide" (PDF). Bearing the brunt, leading the response: Women and the global economic crisis, newsletter. TUC, London. p. 18.
  13. 1 2 Inclusive Cities Study. Coping with Crises: Lingering Recession, Rising Inflation, and the Informal Workforce. Synthesis Report by Zoe Elena Horn. January 2011
  14. 1 2 3 WIEGO. How We Are Structured
  15. ↑ New enhanced database on informal employment produced by the ILO in partnership with WIEGO. International Labour Organization (ILO), 30 April 2012

External links

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