The past year was a time of celebration as we looked back at the significant achievements of WIEGO’s first 20 years, and a time of anticipation as we looked to future opportunities and challenges. As this annual report attests, important progress has been made. The first-ever global estimates of the informal workforce were published early in 2018, and WIEGO continues to advocate – with international bodies and national statistical offices – for more refined definitions of employment status and more robust data.
In this report, we highlight several ways in which WIEGO made a significant impact in 2017-18: from shaping the way governments classify dependent workers in their labour force statistics to arming workers’ organizations with the data needed to negotiate with municipalities around health; from building the leadership capacity of informal workers across our six Focal Cities to influencing, through research and advocacy, international policy frameworks. These highlights from the past year reflect WIEGO’s unique ability to merge local realities with global debates, and they suggest what’s in store for 20 more years of impact.