Who We Are

Membership

WIEGO is a network of individuals and institutions from three broad constituencies:

  • membership-based organizations (MBOs) 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
  • professionals from development agencies (inter-governmental, governmental, and non-governmental) who provide services to or shape policies towards the informal workforce

The founders of WIEGO decided, at the outset, that the WIEGO network should build alliances with individuals and institutions from our constituencies, and should draw on expertise from around the globe as it forged partnerships and linkages.

The WIEGO network has grown remarkably in recent years.

WIEGO Membership
MBOs of informal workers who are active in WIEGO are invited to become our Institutional Members. Individuals from the other two constituencies who are active in WIEGO are invited to become our Individual Members. As of December 2010, the WIEGO network had 168 Members – 29 Institutional and 139 Individual Members – from 28 countries.

WIEGO Board
A10-person Board of Directors governs the WIEGO network. Board members are drawn from our three constituencies. The Board has two committees: a Management (or executive) Committee and a Financial Committee. Most of our five Programmes have an international Advisory Committee, with members drawn from the three WIEGO constituencies. Meet our Board.

WIEGO Team
The number of people working for WIEGO has doubled since 2007. As of December 2010, the WIEGO virtual team was comprised of seven employees and 20 contracted consultants. Nine members of the team were based at the WIEGO Secretariat at the Harvard Kennedy School in Boston, USA or the WIEGO Ltd. office in Manchester, UK; the rest lived and worked in 11 countries around the world. Only six members of the team worked full-time for WIEGO; other team members worked from one-third to three-quarter time. Meet our Team.