| On Friday 9 June, and on Saturday 10 June two key international organisations, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development(OECD) approved two important international documents:
In view of these two major achievement, Social Ecomy Europe’s (SEE) President Juan Antonio Pedreño declared:
First, I wish to thank these two International organisations, and their teams working on social economy as the ILO’s Cooperatives unit, and the OECD unit on Social Economy and Innovation of the
Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities. I also would like to thank the countries and delgations that have led and supported the adoption of these texts; as well as all those within the social economy community that have been pushing and negotiating to achieve these results as: SSE International Forum, the ICA, the International Coalition of the SSE, GSEF and RIPESS, among others, as our members and partners CASES, CEPES, EURICSE and ESS-France.Last but not least, I would like to remind somenthing important in view of this historic moment for the social economy: nothing important for the social economy will be achieved without the social economy. EU and international Institutions should further support social economy networks. We should also strengthen our ties and make sure that we can scale up to represent the interests of a wide and growing community that drives sustainable development and represents an entrepreneurial revolution thats puts the economy at the service of people.
Juan Antonio Pedreño, President of SEE.
The ILO’s International Labour Conference conclusions on SSE and Decent Work, include an introduction that recalls the links between the social and solidarity economy and the ILO by directly referencing the ILO Constitution. Part II provides a clear and comprehensive “Definition of the SSE” based on a set of values and principles. This is the first agreed tripartite definition of the social and solidarity economy at the international level. Part III spells out the “Guiding principles to address challenges and opportunities” to promote decent work and the social and solidarity economy for a human-centred future of work. Part IV explains “The role of governments and the social partners” in fostering the social and solidarity economy’s economic, social and environmental contributions. Part V, entitled “The role of the ILO”, provides recommendations for Office action and key principles that underpin such action. More information can be found here.
The OECD Recommendation on Social Economy represents the first internationally agreed standard to guide countries in setting policy environments and conditions to develop their social economy; and covers the following key areas, very much alligned with the European Social Economy Action Plan:
- Foster a social economy culture;
- Create supportive institutional frameworks;
- Design enabling legal and regulatory frameworks;
- Support access to finance;
- Enable access to public and private markets;
- Strengthen Skills and Business Development Support;
- Encourage impact measurement and monitoring;
- Support the protection of data;
- Encourage social innovation.
Furthermore, the recommendation also instructs the Directing Committee of the Co-operative Action Programme on Local Employment and Economic Development to serve as a forum for exchanging information on the social economy and social innovation, with a view to foster multi-stakeholder and interdisciplinary dialogue; and develop an implementation toolkit to support Adherents’ implementation of the Recommendation. |
