WIEGO anniversary: twenty years with the informal workers around the world.

Our partner Women in Informal Employment Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of its creation.

Founded in 1997 by a group of Informal Economy specialists taking inspiration from the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA), WIEGO is a global research-policy network aiming at relieving poverty of the working poor in the informal economy, especially women, caused by low earnings, high risks, and adverse working environments and conditions associated with the informal economy worldwide.

WIEGO’s activities include the conduct and promotion of research (which results are publicly available) on all aspects related to Informal Economy, such as:

• Experiences and conditions of the poor informal workers
• Working environment and conditions within the Informal Economy
• Policy and regulatory environments
• Causes, effects and ways of addressing the poverty of Informal economy workers.

Moreover, the Organization keeps the informal economy issue at the centre of the stage through the implementation of large awareness-raising, information and education campaigns on the causes, effects and ways to face Informal Economy issues among policy makers, supporters of working poor and informal workers themselves. It seeks to improve the status of the working poor, especially women, in the informal economy around the world: through better data and research, stronger organizations and networks and a more favorable policy environment.

Today, WIEGO is a worldwide reference in the field of Informal Economy, whose network includes 172 members from 40 countries and contributes to promote Informal Economy among international organization and governments.

Within the framework of the IESF project, WIEGO is a reference actor and an outstanding source of valuable publications, best practices, and other resources to be shared among the members. We recommend its dashboard to explore:

• Their network: members, partners and activities
• The data they collected: key indicators, based on official national data, of the size and composition of informal employment
• The publications & resources they generated on informal employment