ILO participates in an observance of the International Day of Cooperatives at the United Nations, New York
The Director ILO Office for the UN Director presented the relevance of cooperatives in promoting decent work and sustainable development at an observance of the 2018 International Day of Cooperatives held at UN Headquarters in New York.


Following the opening remarks, a panel of speakers provided examples of how cooperatives contribute towards the SDGs including the case of Saladillo Mill in Argentina, a worker cooperative established when the former workers of a bankrupt mill bought the enterprise and turned it into a cooperative to save their jobs; Coop Italia, Italy’s largest retailer in greening its own product lines, engaging in responsible sourcing and raising awareness among consumer members on sustainable consumption and production; and the National Cooperative Business Association Cooperative League of the USA (NCBA CLUSA), building resilient communities and promoting economic opportunities through strengthening cooperatives and other producer organizations in 20 countries.
During the following discussion, participants shared their experiences and observations on:
- The role of cooperatives in post-conflict situations in mobilizing local resources and establishing sustainable and inclusive communities;
- The needs for education and capacity building on cooperatives particularly for young people; and
- The importance of data collection to demonstrate cooperatives’ contribution to sustainable development.
Ms Wenyan Yang, Chief of the Global Dialogue for Social Development Branch at UN DESA shared the COPAC initiative on developing guidelines on statistics of cooperatives to be presented at the 20th International Conference of Labour Statisticians in October 2018 towards improving the quality and accessibility of data on cooperatives.
Mr Sukhbold Sukhee, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and Permanent Representative of Mongolia to the UN, emphasized the role of governments in creating enabling legal frameworks for cooperatives, to tap into the full potential of cooperatives for sustainable development.