Pandemic, informality and women’s work: Redefining social protection priorities at WIEGO

From the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the International Labour Office (ILO) projected that 1.6 billion of the 2 billion workers in the informal economy would be among the most severely affected. Social protection systems designed for labour markets characterized by formal employment struggled to provide relief and support to these workers as the global pandemic took hold. It is against this backdrop that WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing) - a research, advocacy and policy network aimed at improving the livelihoods of workers in the informal economy - deepened its engagement in global social protection policy debates.