Board of Directors

Juana del Carmen Britez is Vice-President of the International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF), leads the Union of Auxiliary Personnel of Private Houses (UPACP) in Argentina and is the Director of Health Care Provisions at OSPACP (Auxiliary Personnel of Private Houses’ Health Insurance). Juana, who is a lawyer, has spent 30 years in the labour movement and the fight for the rights of domestic workers and has brought this to the fore with the ILO, UN Women and other international organizations. She hasworked as spokesperson for various unions and as an associate in several departments on workplace violence and care provisions. She has been part of feminist forums both in civil society organizations and ministries in Argentina.

Mirai Chatterjee is the Director of the Social Security Team at the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), overseeing health care, child care, and insurance programmes. She chairs the National Insurance VimoSEWA Cooperative Ltd and is a founding member of the Lok Swasthya Health Cooperative. Additionally, she leads the Gujarat State Women’s SEWA Cooperative Federation, which includes 106 primary cooperatives with 300,000 members. Since joining SEWA in 1984, she has also served as General Secretary.

Mirai is on the Boards of the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), Save the Children, and PRADAN. She advised the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector and the National Rural Health Mission’s Advisory Group on community action. She was a Commissioner for the WHO’s Commission on Social Determinants of Health and a member of India’s National Advisory Council. She holds a B.A. from Harvard University and a Master’s from Johns Hopkins University.

Marty Chen, a renowned development scholar, led WIEGO from its inception in 1997 until 2017, transforming it into a leading organization focused on the informal economy. Her expertise spans employment, gender and poverty, with a focus on the working poor. Marty is a sought-after adviser for institutions like the European Commission, the International Labour Organization, the World Bank and the United Nations.

Marty served as WIEGO’s International Coordinator for two decades and is an Associate at Harvard University’s Mittal South Asia Institute. Before joining Harvard, she worked for two decades in South Asia, notably with BRAC in Bangladesh and as Oxfam America’s field representative in India. Marty holds a PhD in South Asia Regional Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.

She received the Padma Shri from the Government of India in 2011 and the Friends of Bangladesh Liberation War award in 2012. Marty’s work was highlighted by Connecticut College, where she was awarded the Connecticut College Medal.

Debra Davis is a US-certified public accountant and holds a Master’s in Business Administration. She was born and raised in the United States but has lived predominantly in the United Kingdom since 1990. In 2002, she retired as a partner in the consulting firm Deloitte after a successful 18-year career. While at Deloitte, she worked with corporations involved in international business.

Since leaving Deloitte, Debra has played financial management and treasury leadership roles in a variety of settings. She is especially interested in social investment and gender issues, and holds a portfolio of directorships and trusteeships for organizations active in these areas. Debra also volunteers as a business mentor for the Prince’s Trust Enterprise Programme, which helps young people set up their own businesses.

Julie is the Gender Equality and Projects International Officer at the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant and Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF), based in Geneva, Switzerland. She has worked at the ILO and for a Geneva-based NGO and publisher, CETIM. Julie graduated from Sciences-Po (IEP) in Aix-en-Provence, France, and holds two Master’s degrees, in international relations (Université Laval, Québec, Canada) and development studies (LSE, London, England). She is committed to the alter-globalization movement and is involved in various grass-roots organizations in Geneva.

Simel Esim, a political economist focused on social justice and decent work, has been involved with WIEGO since 1997. From 2000 to 2003, she was WIEGO’s regional adviser for Eastern Europe and the Arab States. Her Ph.D. dissertation centred on women workers in informal employment in Turkey, where she supported home-based worker and waste picker cooperatives.

From 2004 to 2012, Simel was a regional specialist on gender equality and women workers’ rights at the ILO’s Regional Office for Arab States. She coordinated research on gender equality in the informal economy and led initiatives on migrant domestic workers’ rights.

Since 2012, Simel has led the ILO’s work on cooperatives and the social and solidarity economy (SSE) in Geneva. She has collaborated with WIEGO, SEWA and global membership-based organizations of workers on research, advocacy, and capacity development for the rights of workers in informal employment. She led the ILO’s Office report on decent work and the SSE. Simel serves on the advisory committee of WIEGO’s Organization and Representation Programme.

Lin Lean Lim, an independent consultant and development economist, retired from the ILO at the end of 2008 after a 20-year tenure. She developed the ILO global programme to integrate decent work into the Millennium Development Goals, and oversaw regional programmes in labour migration, youth employment, labour market governance and local economic development. From 1994 to 2004, at the ILO Headquarters, she focused on the protection of vulnerable women workers, and authored the technical report for the 2002 International Labour Conference on Decent Work and the Informal Economy.

Lin Lean Lim has served on the Board of Trustees of the Voluntary Fund for Technical Cooperation in the Field of Human Rights with the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. She has also been a visiting senior fellow at the Khazanah Research Institute of Malaysia.

Uma Rani is a Senior Economist at the ILO, where she has worked since 2008. She is involved with the ILO Technical Secretariat for the Commission on the Future of Work and holds a PhD in Development Economics from the University of Hyderabad, India. Before joining the ILO, she was an Associate Professor at the Gujarat Institute of Development Research in Ahmedabad and taught at the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics in Pune. She has held Visiting Fellow positions at various international institutions, focusing on informal employment and precarious work.

In 2013, Uma Rani led a research project on international minimum wage policies, influencing South Africa’s national minimum wage recommendations. A long-standing member of WIEGO, her research examines minimum wages, income inequality, global supply chains in the electronics sector, and the platform economy, emphasizing informal and precarious employment.

Lorraine Sibanda, born Lorraine Ndhlovu, is a lifelong activist for women’s rights, workers’ rights and human rights. She is the President of StreetNet International, the first woman to hold this position. She also serves as the National President of the Zimbabwe Chamber of Informal Economy Associations (ZCIEA), a pioneering organization advocating for the rights of workers in informal employment in Zimbabwe.

Originally a teacher, Lorraine transitioned to cross-border trade, vending and goat farming because of Zimbabwe’s deteriorating employment conditions. Her activism began during her university days as the first female Student Representative Council President. Lorraine became a trade unionist while working in a factory and joined ZCIEA, rising through its ranks through determination and hard work.

Internationally, Lorraine represents workers through WIEGO and StreetNet International, addressing the International Labour Conference in 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022. She advocates for the recognition and integration of workers in informal  employment into the labour movement and emphasizes empowering women with necessary tools and resources. For Lorraine, there is no such thing as a voiceless person. “I don’t believe in being the voice of the voiceless, but merely a mouthpiece of those I represent. Because I believe only the affected can articulate their issues”.

Poonsap S. Tulaphan has been a leader for women, home-based workers, and workers in informal employment in Thailand for more than four decades. She organizes membership-based organizations and advocates for social protection policies. Poonsap serves as a labour specialist for the Homeworkers Protection Committee, advising the Labour Ministry of Thailand on policies to improve homeworkers’ working conditions and lives, including occupational health and safety, skills development and fair remuneration rates.

She has promoted the economic empowerment of home-based workers by using social and solidarity economy concepts to establish the HomeNet Thailand Brand, a social enterprise that builds entrepreneurship and production skills. Poonsap is a Board member of HomeNet Thailand Association (HNTA), which has around 5,000 members, and the Director of the Foundation for Labour and Employment Promotion (FLEP).

Poonsap supported the organizing of the Federation of Informal Workers in Thailand (FIT), representing over 10,000 workers from HNTA, the Network of Domestic Workers, the Confederation of Street Vendors in Bangkok, and the Motorcycle Taxi Drivers Association. Her work has led to significant legal protections, including the Homeworkers Protection Act, Ministerial Regulation No.14 for domestic workers’ rights, and the Social Security Scheme under Article 40. Poonsap is a member of HomeNet International’s Working Committee, the Informal Workers Insurers sub-committee, and the National Informal Workers Administration of Thailand Committee.

Imraan Valodia is a Professor of Economics, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Climate, Sustainability and Inequality, and Director of the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS) at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. He played a key role in establishing the SCIS, a multidisciplinary initiative promoting research and policy change for greater equality.

Imraan led an international study on the informal economy in ten cities and a research project on the gender impacts of taxation in eight countries. He has published extensively in academic journals and the popular press and co-edited the Oxford Handbook of the South African Economy.

He is a part-time member of South Africa’s Competition Tribunal, Commissioner of the National Minimum Wage Commission, and Chair of the Academy of Science of South Africa’s Standing Committee on Science for the Reduction of Poverty and Inequality. In 2016, he was appointed by President Cyril Ramaphosa to chair the Advisory Panel on the National Minimum Wage, leading to the introduction of a national minimum wage in South Africa. He serves on the Presidential Economic Advisory Council. Imraan collaborates withthe ILO, World Bank, UNDP, UNIFEM and UN Women. He is also a board member of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) and the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester.