Cooperatives (EMP/COOP)
International standard on cooperatives guides work
ILO activities are guided by the international standard on cooperatives, the ILO Recommendation on the Promotion of Cooperatives, 2002 (R.193), It Cooperative Branch (EMP/COOP) serves ILO constituents and cooperative organizations in four priority areas:- Raising public awareness on cooperatives through evidence based advocacy and sensitization to cooperative values and principles;
- Ensuring the competitiveness of cooperatives by developing tailored tools to cooperative stakeholders including management training, audit manuals and assistance programmes.
- Promoting the Inclusion of teaching of cooperative principles and practices at all levels of the national education and training systems; and,
- Providing advice on cooperative policy and cooperative law, including participatory policy and law making and the impact on cooperatives of taxation policies, labour law, accounting standards, and competition law among others.
Partnerships for cooperative promotion
The ILO works in partnership with the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA), the representative world body of cooperatives and is a member of the Committee for the Promotion and Advancement of Cooperatives (COPAC), an interagency committee which promotes sustainable cooperative development. It also collaborates with cooperative development agencies and training institutions.A cooperative is defined as an "autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise."
ILO Recommendation 193
What's new
-
-
Instructional material
Managing your agricultural cooperative, My.COOP
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"
14 December 2011
Article: From the depths of an African shantytown, a nascent youth employment movement grows -
Newsletter
ILO and Cooperatives, Issue No, 3, 2011
This issue features a report on the launch of the International Year of Cooperatives 2012, a historic event for all cooperative stakeholders. It also highlights areas where cooperatives are active and that may surprise readers – prisoners’ cooperatives, cooperatives for migrant workers, and cooperatives formed by small businesses or entrepreneurs’ cooperatives.
The issue introduces the web-based Cooperative Resource Guide which makes information on cooperatives more accessible to cooperative stakeholders and the general public. Thousands of resources are made available with links to cooperative legislation, statistics, training manuals, photos and much more. Youth, social economy and new publications from CoopAfrica are also featured. -
Article
International Year of Cooperatives: In Kenya, working hand in hand with the ILO to create cooperatives and jobs
31 October 2011Cooperatives 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
“Social and Solidarity Economy: Our common road towards Decent Work” - Reader for the ILO Academy on Social And Solidarity Academy 2011
October 24, 2011
Social and Solidarity Economy: Our common road towards Decent Work" - Reader in support of the Second Social and Solidarity Economy Academy, 24-28 October 2011, Montreal, Canada. The Reader brings together a series of articles to help build a common understanding of the concept of Social Solidarity Economy (SSE), with specific focus on issues regarding governance and organizational management, policy and networking in and for the organizations of the SEE. It also includes general information about the ILO and the social and solidarity economy initiative and articles on the relationship between SSE and the Informal Economy, Green Economy, Local Development and modalities of financing the SSE.
-
Resource guide
Resource guide on cooperatives
This new guide provides researchers and cooperative practitioners with access to key ILO documents on cooperatives including publications, legal texts, cooperative statistics, multimedia items and links to a wide variety of resources of cooperatives from around the world.
-
Together with the ILO International Training Centre in Turin, COOPAfrica has published a Project Design Manual. A step-by-step tool to support the development of cooperatives and other forms of self-help organizations. The 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.
-
-
-
ILO hails UN proclamation of 2012 as International Year of Cooperatives
22 December 2009The International Labour Office (ILO) hailed the proclamation by the United Nations General Assembly of 2012 of the International Year of Cooperatives as an acknowledgement of the fundamental role of cooperatives in promoting the socio-economic development of hundreds of millions of people worldwide, especially in times of economic crisis.
Key resources
-
Handbook on Cooperatives for use by Workers' Organizations
01 January 2007This 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
01 January 2006This 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
01 February 2005Provides guidance on how to draft a cooperative law.
