Resources on cooperatives

  1. Cooperatives: Resilient to crises, key to sustainable growth

    06 July 2012

    In a message marking International Day of Cooperatives, ILO Director-General Juan Somavia salutes the approximately one billion people worldwide who are involved in cooperatives.

  2. Green and fair: Cooperatives in Ethiopia

    19 June 2012

    By their very nature, cooperatives can balance economic, environmental, and social needs. The ILO will be showcasing some of its successful experiences in this field at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20). One of them involves more than 200,000 coffee producers and almost 200 cooperatives in Ethiopia.

  3. Economic and other benefits of the entreprenuers’ cooperative as a specific form of enterprise cluster

    03 January 2011

    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.

  4. Dutch government supports Decent Work Country Programmes

    30 May 2006

    The Government of the Netherlands will provide 38.5 million dollars to support the launch of the ILO Decent Work Country Programme strategy over the next four years.