Women's Economic Empowerment
Featured Stories:
| Women Organizing for Fair Trade |
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An action research project examined the experiences of women producers in collective enterprises in seven countries between 2009 – 2011. Part of the Women's Economic Empowerment project, the study highlighted the economic and social benefits of engaging in groups with links to Fair Trade. Trading Our Way Up: Women Organizing for Fair Trade captures details of the research. Read more. |
WIEGO's Approach to Women's Economic Empowerment
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. WIEGO emphasizes the increased ability of working poor women to influence the wider environment that shapes their livelihoods and lives. Through our work with membership-based organizations of informal workers, we have learned that access to resources without the ability to influence broader external factors does not necessarily translate into improved livelihoods.
For WIEGO, empowerment refers to the process of change that gives working poor women – as individual workers and as members of worker organizations – the ability to access the resources they need while also gaining the ability to influence the wider policy, regulatory and institutional environment. Whether working with waste picker organizations to help them voice their demands at climate change negotiations (see this webpage for information) or domestic workers and home-based workers as they strive to gain visibility on the world stage (see below), this empowerment is central to WIEGO's work
Read more about WIEGO’s position and approach to women’s economic empowerment in this paper.
See a list of key documents and web resources, posted by the ILO, related to women's economic empowerment.
The Women's Economic Empowerment Project
As a grantee of the MDG3 Fund: Investing in Equality from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, WIEGO initiated the Women’s Economic Empowerment project in 2009. The project consists of six elements developed with WIEGO’s partner networks and organizations:
2. Women Organizing for Fair Trade
3. Organized Strength for Home-Based Workers
4. Market Support for Street Vendors
Project Objectives
The project aims to achieve the following results:
- strengthen membership-based organizations of the working poor to address issues of organizing, market access, networking, policy influence and policy change
- support women informal workers in articulating their needs and concerns to policy-makers at all levels (e.g. municipal, national, regional, global)
- improve the quality of information available to both informal workers and policy makers re: the identified needs and concerns of the working poor
- achieve positive policy changes to improve the lives of women informal workers
- share key success factors where women informal workers have improved their livelihoods to achieve a multiplier effect through the movement of the working poor
By networking globally, different occupational groups of working poor women are mobilizing and making themselves heard. This helps ensure their participation in policy and planning processes that impact them, so they are recognized as contributing members of the economy. WIEGO facilitates the sharing and exchange of information as well as advocacy for the legal identity and recognition of the working poor.
Related Publication: IPS (Inter Press Service) Communicating for Change - MDG3 Summary and Highlights
News Links
To see the latest news items, gleaned from around the world, on domestic workers, home-based workers, street vendors and other informal worker groups, visit WIEGO's News & Events section.
