ILO COOP participated in the 2017 edition of the Gender Academy organized by International Training Centre in Turin between 13-24 November. The academy included both an elective and a master course that touched upon the role of cooperatives and other social and solidarity economy enterprises and organizations in advancing women’s empowerment and gender equality. To download the programme, click here.

The elective on cooperatives of waste pickers was led by Sonia Maria Dias, a Waste Specialist from Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO). She brought in experiences of waste pickers’ cooperatives from around the world including Swach in Pune, India and Belo Horizonte in Brazil. ILO’s COOP Programme Manager contributed with a presentation outlining the role of cooperatives in formalizing the informal economy, sharing the main findings and recommendations from a recent publication from the ILO and WIEGO titled “Cooperation among workers in the informal economy: A focus on home-based workers and waste pickers”.

During the master course, ILO’s COOP Programme Manager Simel Esim made a presentation on “Community based-action & local strategies of cooperatives & social and solidarity economy toward formalization and empowerment” followed by a presentation by Sonia Maria Dias looking at the cooperative experience of waste pickers in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The ensuing discussion included questions around the role of cooperatives in global supply chains as it pertains to home based workers in the ready-made garment industry, role of cooperatives in care provision.