The African Union (AU) has held a Consultative Meeting of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) on 24th-25th August 2022 in Windhoek, Namibia. The meeting was organized to review the AU’s draft Ten-Year Strategy on the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) and its Implementation Plan (2023-2033). The objective of the Consultative Meeting was to engage CSOs around the Ten-Year SSE Strategy and Implementation Plan towards a comprehensive, coordinated and mutually reinforcing policy framework of actions to legitimize, support and expand the SSE in Member States as one of the Post-Covid-19 recovery and reconstruction strategies.

Participants to the Consultative Meeting of CSOs included representatives of cooperatives, associations and regional and international organizations among others. The ILO joined the meeting virtually with two ILO officials, Ms. Simel Esim, the Head of the Cooperatives Unit and Mr Jens Christensen, Senior Enterprises Specialist in ILO Pretoria.

Ms Esim made a presentation noting that the ILO welcomed the consultative meeting on the draft strategy, which it has financially and technically supported. She underlined the continued commitment of the ILO to support the process toward the finalization of the AU’s draft Ten-Year Strategy on the SSE. In her presentation she noted that the 110th International Labour Conference which held a general discussion on decent work and the SSE in June 2022. She noted a resolution was adopted at the plenary of the Conference. She highlighted that as a follow up, the Office is developing a strategy and action plan for consideration at the ILO’s Governing Body at its 346th Session in November 2022. She noted that despite the growing momentum around the SSE a lot more needs to be done for improving understanding around it at the national, regional and global levels.

As a next step, there will be a follow up consultative meeting of Member State Experts consultative meeting scheduled for 23-24 November. These exchanges will inform potential next steps towards the adoption of the SSE Strategy by Member States.