Resources on cooperatives

  1. COPAC organizes an International Day of Cooperatives event on cooperatives and climate action

    22 July 2020

    ILO’s Enterprises Department Director and Chair of the Committee on Promotion and Advancement of Cooperatives (COPAC), Mr van Vuuren, participated as a speaker in a virtual event organized on the occasion of the International Day of Cooperatives focusing on climate action on 9 July 2020.

  2. ILO COOP 100 Webinar III - Cooperatives for Climate Action

    06 July 2020

    The webinar focused on climate action, the theme for this year’s International Day of Cooperatives. Four speakers presented on the role of cooperatives in climate change mitigation and adaptation and discussed ways to scale up efforts toward a greener and better future.

  3. A first step towards improving working conditions of waste pickers in Senegal

    27 September 2019

    Under the Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE), the ILO is supporting an initiative to improve working conditions in the waste management sector, by helping to organize informal economy workers into cooperatives.

  4. Waste pickers’ cooperatives and social and solidarity economy organizations

    20 August 2019

    Waste pickers make significant contributions to public health, sanitation, and the environment by promoting resource circulation and reducing the amount of landfill. However, they are often not legally recognized as workers and suffer from poor working conditions and lack of social protection. This brief highlights the role of waste pickers' cooperatives and other social and solidarity economy organizations (SSEOs) in integrating and formalizing the work of waste pickers in the recycling value chain and improving their working conditions.

  5. Transforming our world: A cooperative 2030 - Cooperative contributions to SDG 14

    26 July 2019

    This brief is part of the Transforming our world: A cooperative 2030 series produced by the Committee for the Promotion and Advancement of Cooperatives (COPAC). Through a series of 17 briefs, one for each Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), COPAC hopes to raise awareness about the significant contributions of cooperative enterprises towards achieving the 2030 Agenda in a sustainable, inclusive and responsible way, and encourage continued support for their efforts. This brief in the series focuses on This brief focuses on SDG 14 – Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.

  6. Sri Lanka’s first ever ‘eco-recommended’ fisheries

    27 February 2019

    With the support of the ILO Local Empowerment through Economic Development (LEED) project funded by the Australian government, two blue swimming crab fisheries in Sri Lanka become the country’s first ever ‘eco-recommended’ fisheries. The five-year collaborative efforts involved the local seafood industry, government agencies and fishery cooperatives.

  7. Redesol - Building sustainable and solidary links among waste pickers in the informal economy in Brazil

    20 June 2018

    "Spotlight Interviews with Co-operators" is a series of interviews with cooperative leaders from around the world with whom ILO officials have crossed paths during the course of their work with cooperatives. For this issue ILO interviewed Ms Sonia Dias, Waste Picker Sector Specialist at Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) on Redesol, a network of cooperatives of waste pickers in Brazil.

  8. "Money finds us!" - Enriching the vegetable harvest in Timor-Leste

    28 February 2014

    How an ILO supported project helped a local community to improve their farming practices, develop their market access, create jobs and support the development of small and medium-sized enterprises.