ILO participates in a webinar on the Social economy and migrant entrepreneurship

At the webinar organized by 3 EU-funded projects, the Director of the ILO’s Enterprises Department talked about the ILO approach and initiatives related to labour migration and refugee situations including responses through SSE institutions

Noticia | 25 de septiembre de 2020
The webinar was part of a series of online events "Growing Europe: Boosting migrant entrepreneurship networks ” organized by three EU-funded projects, EMEN, M-UP and MAGNET. The webinars took place every Thursday in September 2020 and were dedicated to current issues and future challenges around migrant entrepreneurship in Europe.

During the virtual event "Social Economy and migrant entrepreneurship" held on 10 September 2020, the three speakers presented on how actors in the social economy support migrants and refugees before, during and after the creation of a SSE enterprises: Vic van Vuuren, Director of ILO’s Enterprises Department ; Giuseppe Guerini, President of CECOP ; and Gianluca Pastorelli, Executive President of Diesis Network . The session, moderated by Luigi Martignetti, Secretary General of REVES, was enriched by presentations on three best practices: Univerbal, by Italia Perez Ojeda and Charlotte Poisson; OLMEC, by John Mayford.

In his intervention, Mr van Vuuren highlighted the decent work deficits faced by labour migrants, refugees and other forcibly displaced persons. He then provided examples of how the COVID-19 pandemic is worsening the living conditions of many, especially among the most vulnerable populations. He introduced the main features of SSE in relation to decent work. He also elaborated on the capacity of SSE institutions to respond to complex situations, with a special reference to COVID-19 response.

Mr van Vuuren concluded his intervention by presenting on the ILO approach and initiatives related to labour migration and refugee situations including responses through SSE institutions. In particular, he mentioned a number of ILO initiatives and interventions through cooperatives and wider SSE institutions in the context of labour migration and forced displacement. On forced displacement, he elaborated on ILO’s work under the Partnership for improving prospects for forcibly displaced persons and host communities (PROSPECTS) project and the activities on cooperatives and wider SSE institutions. His PowerPoint presentation is available here.

The event brought together a number of participants from around the world who engaged with the speakers through the Q&A session.