International Day of Cooperatives: Cooperation among workers in the informal economy

The International Day of Cooperatives (IDC) is celebrated on the first Saturday of July every year by the global cooperative movement. The aim of the IDC is to increase awareness on cooperatives and promote the movement's successes and ideals of international solidarity, economic efficiency, equality, and world peace. The theme for the 2017 IDC is inclusion, with the slogan “Cooperatives leave no one behind”.

On the occasion of this day, ILO’s Cooperatives Unit is organizing an event reflecting on use of cooperatives and other social and solidarity economy (SSE) enterprises and organizations among workers in the informal economy, particularly waste pickers and home workers. In overcoming the multiple decent work deficits they face, workers in the informal economy devise different strategies, including forming cooperatives. They use these enterprises and organizations to improve their livelihoods by gaining access to a range of services and markets; to practice workplace democracy; and to engage in collective negotiations. The ILO and Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) are publishing a report which aims to deepen the understanding on the nature and role of cooperatives and other SSE organizations for waste pickers and home-based workers.

The event will start with a brief introduction on the International Day of Cooperatives, followed with presentations by Simel Esim (ILO COOP), outlining the main findings and recommendations from the new publication and by Sonia Maria Dias, a WIEGO specialist and researcher, on her work with waste picker organizations in Brazil.

Event Programme

Date: Monday, 3 July 2017
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Venue: ILO ENTERPRISES Meeting Room (11-12), Geneva

Introduction
Vic Van Vuuren, Director, ENTERPRISES

Presentations
Use of cooperatives by home workers and waste pickers for formalization Simel Esim, Head of Cooperatives Unit, ILO
Waste pickers’ cooperatives in Brazil: the perspective from the ground Sonia Maria Dias, Waste specialist, PhD, Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing WIEGO

Discussion

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