Simel Esim, Head of the ILO’s Cooperatives Unit,
On the first Saturday of July each year, the international community celebrates the International Day of Cooperatives. This year’s theme, Sustainable consumption and production of goods and services is timely, as the ILO works towards a future of work that is based on sustainable production and employment models. Continue reading
Simel Esim (left) is Head and Senior Technical Specialist at the Cooperatives Unit International Labour Organization. Lenore Matthew is a Cooperatives Unit Intern.
The 104th International Labour Conference has voted for the adoption of a Recommendation on transition from the informal to the formal economy after two years of deliberations.
It was the first ever international labour standard specifically aimed at tackling the informal economy, which comprises more than half of the world’s workforce.
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Simel Esim, Chief of the ILO’s Co-operatives Unit and Waltteri Katajamaki, Junior Professional Officer – ILO Cooperatives Unit
The cooperative enterprise model is seeing a renaissance around the world. The turnover of the largest 300 cooperatives in the world over the last 3 years has grown by 11.6 per cent to reach 2.2 trillion USD in 2012. Preliminary data from 76 countries points to more than 250 million people working in co-operatives. The International Co-operative Alliance recently postulated that cooperatives would be the fastest growing form of enterprise by 2020.
This is an ambitious goal, even taking into account the momentum of the cooperative movement in the aftermath of the crisis and following the 2012 UN International Year of Cooperatives. Their continued appeal in follow up to the global ‘great recession’ suggests it might not be off target.
Work In Progress 