Cooperatives (EMP/COOP)

Book

Guidelines for Cooperative Legislation (Third revised edition)

Provides guidance to policy and lawmakers as well as other stakeholders to update existing and draft new cooperative legislation

Fact sheet

A better future for young people: What cooperatives can offer

Information brief on cooperatives

External links

www.stories.coop

1. Co-operative legislation finds a home in more nations
2. Simel Esim on the power of cooperatives
3. Myths, death and insurance
4. In Kenya, working hand in hand with the ILO to create cooperatives and jobs
5. A Model for Small-Scale Farmers in Zanzibar
6. Empowering women through their own SACCOS
7. Providing security through SACCOs in Ethiopia
8. Turning waste fruit into a profitable business

External links

www.thenews.coop

1. ILO highlights co-ops' important role in Japan’s recovery from natural disasters
2. Co-ops help to promote gender equality, says Simel Esim
3. Simel Esim on the importance of getting the youth in co-ops
4. What world do we want as cooperators? And is the work done?
5. Dunsany Declaration feeds into the ICA's Blueprint for a Co-operative Decade
6. Simel Esim speaks of the ILO’s co-operative branch key projects
7. ILO Director-General explains why co-ops are key to feeding the world
8. Two UN agencies support co-ops role in alleviating youth unemployment crisis
9. 1,000 co-operators celebrate Global Worker Co-op Day
10. Co-operative Youth Forum: Empowerment, Employment and Engagement

Feature

Healing pharmacies

As the International Year of Cooperatives draws to an end, ILO News looks at how cooperatives in Turkey offer customers easier and safer access to medicines.

Newsletter

ILO and Cooperatives - COOP NEWS No. 3, 2012

Analysis

What financial cooperatives can teach the big banks

The success of financial cooperatives during the global financial crisis shows there is a credible alternative to the investment-owned banking system.

News

Co-ops are here to stay

Simel Esim, Chief of the ILO's Cooperatives Branch, reports from Manchester on the Cooperatives United event, culminating the UN International Year of Cooperatives.

Statement

Message from ILO Director-General on World Food Day

Agricultural cooperatives are the focus of World Food Day 2012.

Analysis

Giving banks a good name

Is it possible for banks to devote themselves to the financial welfare of workers and still survive financial crises?
The ILO looks at the Rokin Bank, a union-led cooperative in Japan.

Statement

'Cooperative enterprises build a better world' - Statement by ILO Director-General

Message by Juan Somavia, Director-General of the ILO, on the occasion of the 90th ICA International Co-operative Day and the 18th UN International Day of Cooperatives.

Article

Turning waste fruit into a profitable business

Cooperatives have played an important role in Indonesia by helping to boost growth, reduce poverty and promote social cohesion. As the world celebrates the UN International Day of Cooperatives, Gita Lingga reports on a successful project involving rural women in the Maluku islands.

Article

Cooperatives show the way out of the crisis

Cooperatives have been more resilient to the global economic and jobs crisis than other sectors. The UN International Day of Cooperatives, which takes place this year on 7 July, offers a chance for cooperatives to reassert their position in the world economy. ILO News interviews Simel Esim, Chief of the ILO’s Cooperative Branch.

Newsletter

ILO and Cooperatives - COOP NEWS No. 2, 2012 (Newsletter)

The current issue of COOP NEWS highlights the diversity of efforts currently underway to promote cooperative enterprises in contributing to a more just and sustainable development model. Among these are found an update on how the ILO and constituents are marking the United Nations International Year of Cooperatives, cooperative policy and legislative initiatives in the Andean, Mediterranean and North Africa regions, cooperative initiatives to address the youth employment crisis, updates on the My.COOP agricultural cooperative training programme and COOP Africa. This issue also includes information on staff changes as well as important upcoming events on cooperatives.

Publication

Economic and other benefits of the entrepreneurs’ cooperative as a specific form of enterprise cluster

This book presents entrepreneurs’ cooperatives - cooperatives formed by groups of entrepreneurs, independently owned businesses, tradesmen, professionals, or by municipalities and other public bodies.

It shows that cooperatives have helped small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in many countries to become and remain competitive. Although this form of business clustering is not wide spread, there are signs that its development and entrepreneurship effects are gradually being considered. This study analyses the set up and the economic, social and employment benefits of entrepreneurs‘ cooperatives as well as the reasons why their use has not spread. It further indicates those features which allow for replication of the model elsewhere and concludes with a number of recommendations.

Instructional material

Managing your agricultural cooperative, My.COOP

Managing your agricultural cooperative, My.COOP is a training package and programme on the management of agricultural cooperatives. The objective of this training material is to enable existing and potential managers of agricultural cooperatives to identify and address major challenges that are specific to cooperatives in market oriented agricultural development. It is based on the fact that proper management enables cooperatives to offer high quality, efficient and effective services to their members. Moreover, well managed agricultural cooperatives can also contribute to wider development issues such as food security, sustainable use of natural resources and inclusive employment creation.

My.COOP is a partnership initiative, initiated by ILO COOPAfrica and the Cooperative Branch.

See for more detail the My.COOP partners' launch meeting that took place on 26-27 January 2012 at ITC ILO

Article

Slideshow: "Kibera Then and Now – Youth Employment in the Slums"
Article: From the depths of an African shantytown, a nascent youth employment movement grows

Article

International Year of Cooperatives: In Kenya, working hand in hand with the ILO to create cooperatives and jobs

Cooperatives provide some 100 million jobs around the world. Many of these jobs provide for basic human needs, such as the dairy farms of Kenya. Today, some 13,000 cooperatives in Kenya have some 9 million members. As the United Nations launches its International Year of Cooperatives, Anne Holmes reports on how cooperatives are thriving, and the role of the ILO in their growth.

Instructional material

Project Design Manual, a step-by-step tool to Support the Development of Cooperatives and Other Forms of Self-Help Organizations

This step-by-step manual provides cooperatives and other types of self-help organizations with practical guidance to formulate project proposals that are economically, socially, politically and environmentally viable. It covers all the steps of project design: from the identification of the main problem to be addressed, to the planning of the project implementation, monitoring and evaluation.


 Spanish version.

Instructional Material

Handbook on Cooperatives for use by Workers' Organizations

This handbook lists the essential things to know about cooperatives for all those who are interested as members, future members, politicians or staff of national or international institutions in charge of the promotion and development of cooperatives. In simple, understandable language, the handbook deals in turn with the characteristic features of cooperatives, cooperative enterprise as a whole, the promotion of cooperatives and the close ties that exist between the ILO and cooperatives.

Let’s organize! : a SYNDICOOP handbook for trade unions and cooperatives about organizing workers in the informal economy

This SYNDICOOP Handbook is designed to help replicate the approach by serving as a resource for trade union and cooperative organizers and trainers. It was finalized by members of the International Steering Committee of the SYNDICOOP Programme, mainly comprising representatives from the International Confederation of Trade Unions (ICFTU now ITUC), the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) and ILO together with National Steering Committee members from all four programme countries as well as project staff.

Guidelines for cooperative legislation, second revised edition

Provides guidance on how to draft cooperative law.