The assessment was conducted by a team from Overseas Development Institute (ODI) for the ILO and Open Society Foundation (OSF). The objectives of the research were to: identify and present analysis on joint initiatives by trade unions and cooperatives to organize informal economy workers that are most promising; identify success factors of selected good practices; and generate recommendations for supporting sustainability, scaling, and replication in the countries covered.

To that end the assessment looked into recent developments in the informal economy making a case for exploring the intersection of trade union/cooperative partnerships for informal economy workers. It provided a brief overview of the foundation and evolution of trade union/cooperative partnerships in four case studies – Brazil (waste picking sector), Colombia (domestic work sector), Kenya (street vending sector) and South Africa (domestic work sector). It proceeded to present a typology of the partnerships and discusses key achievements of these partnerships for informal economy workers and operators. Finally it highlighted opportunities and challenges those union/cooperative partnerships encounter in organising and advocating for informal economy workers in terms of effectiveness, sustainability, scalability and replicability.

The validation workshops are being undertaken at the national, sectoral and institutional levels. Two recent validation workshops took place virtually on June 24 with International Alliance of Street Vendors (StreetNet) and on June 30th with the participation of related ILO, OSF and ODI staff. In both instances introductions by ILO and OSF staff were followed the presentation of the research by ODI. In both events, two discussant, who are familiar with the issues, provided comments on the research before the floor was open for questions.

The research will be finalized based on inputs from the validation workshops. Once finalized research findings will be disseminated widely through a series of webinars. At a more global level, the findings from the research will also go as inputs into the ILO office report that is under development for the 2022 International Labour Conference that will hold a general discussion on the social and solidarity economy.