Founding Meeting - UN Inter-Agency Task Force on Social and Solidarity Economy

The founding meeting of the UN Inter-Agency Task Force on Social and Solidarity Economy is being convened by UNRISD, the ILO, the UNDP Geneva Representation Office and UN-NGLS on 30 September 2013 in Geneva.

The Inter-Agency Task Force on Social and Solidarity Economy is a concrete result of the UNRISD Conference, Potential and Limits of Social and Solidarity Economy, held in May 2013. At the conference, researchers, policy makers and civil society actors identified the potential of SSE to contribute to local development, food security, gender equality, environmental protection and health care provisioning. The Task Force is an initiative in response to the fact that the consideration of SSE within the UN system tends to be fragmented, and has not matched the growing interest in this field within other sectors of the development community. As the United Nations discusses the contours of the post-2015 development agenda, the Task Force will provide inputs to the UN system regarding the development potential and policy implications of SSE.

In addition to the convenors, representatives from 15 United Nations entities and specialized agencies (including UN-DESA, FAO, OHCHR, UNCTAD, UNEP, UNESCO, UN Women, UNITAR, WHO and World Bank) have been invited to participate.

Participants will identify SSE-related work currently undertaken within the UN, discuss the role of the task force, identify entry points for the promotion of SSE within UN processes, and exchange ideas around the possibilities for joint projects.

“Social and solidarity economy”, or SSE, is increasingly used to refer to organizations that have explicit economic, social and often environmental objectives, and involve various forms of cooperation and solidarity. These include cooperatives, women’s self-help groups, social or community enterprises, fair trade networks and associations of informal economy workers.

Globally, such alternative forms of production, finance and consumption are growing in response to the social, economic and environmental crises and contexts of vulnerability. Recognizing the development potential of SSE, many national and local governments are now responding to this significant trend.

For more information on SSE, visit: www.unrisd.org/sse and http://socialeconomy.itcilo.org/en/sse-academy-collective-brain.