The International Labour Organization Director-General, Mr Guy Ryder, and the new President of the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA), Mr Ariel Guarco, met at the ILO Headquarters in Geneva on 9 May 2018. During this meeting they reaffirmed the historic ties between the two institutions. They reviewed the key elements of their ongoing collaboration ranging from issues around policy and legislation and research to capacity building and advocacy. They also underlined the critical importance of improving statistics on cooperatives.

Building on their ongoing cooperation, they have agreed on updating the current memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the two institutions, in the framework of changing world of work. The ICA has already prepared a position paper on the Global Commission’s Inception Report which was presented to the secretariat of the Commission reflecting on the role of cooperatives in work and employment and proposing policy recommendations to further advance cooperatives’ contributions to the future of work.

This new MoU would be accompanied by an action plan oriented towards concrete activities on a number of areas including: Engagement on Sustainable Development Goal 8 on Decent Work and Economic Growth; Advancing decent work in global supply chains through cooperatives; Combatting false cooperatives in partnership with governments and trade unions; and Using existing decent work tools to strengthen capacity of cooperatives. The updated MoU will be signed and put into force in time for the ILO centenary in 2019.