The ILO’s Cooperatives Unit (ILO COOP) and the International Training Center of the ILO (ITC-ILO) have been collaborating closely on cooperative and social and solidarity economy development for some years. The most recent engagements on this front include a training of trainers (ToT) workshop on three ILO tools (Think.Coop, Start.Coop and Manage.Coop) from 10 to 14 December 2018 at the ITC-ILO campus in Turin, Italy. This training was one of the pilot trainings of the three tools organized in 2018 with the other trainings taking place in Bolivia, Peru, Turkey, Central African Republic and Madagascar.

The ToT in Turin brought together 13 participants from the Cooperatives Europe Development Platform (CEDP), a European network of cooperative organizations active in international cooperation. Participants engaged with the tools and provided their inputs for changes based on their own experiences in delivering cooperative training. A number of participants expressed their interest in using the tools in their upcoming projects.

The ILO and the ITC-ILO have also started working on a new online training tool ‘My.Coop Smart’ which aims to help potential trainers understand the key contents of My.Coop, a training package and programme on the management of agricultural cooperatives launched in 2012. This initiative is in direct follow up to the recommendations from a recent stocktaking exercise undertaken by the ILO and Agriterra on My.COOP. Using a web portal responsive to all mobile and desktop devices My.Coop Smart will include recent examples and graphic materials. Toward initiating this effort, a brainstorming meeting took place at the ITC-ILO campus on 21 and 22 January 2019 with the participation of ILO COOP, ITC-ILO and Agriterra. The tool will be launched in the first half of 2019.

The ILO and the ITC-ILO are analysing the possibility of organizing a cooperatives academy over one week in 2020. This academy will benefit from the contents of different training tools on cooperatives (My.Coop, My.Coop Smart, Think.Coop, Start.Coop, Manage.Coop, Apex.Fin.Coop) to support development cooperation project staff in integrating them into their workplans.

Last but not least, the two organizations will co-organize three editions of ILO SSE Academy in 2019, the year of ILO Centenary with a specific focus on SSE in the future of work. See here for dates, venues, and other details.