WIEGO is teaming up with delegates from the SEWA Cooperative Federation, StreetNet International and the Unión de Trabajadoras y Trabajadores de la Economía Popular (UTEP) to take part in the seventh Global Social Economy Forum (GSEF 2025) in Bordeaux, France, from October 29 to 31.
Federico Parra, WIEGO’s Social and Solidarity Economy Specialist, leads this delegation on behalf of WIEGO in their joint participation in the GSEF, which brings together 50 participants from 26 organizations around the world. These leaders of the social and solidarity economy, the popular economy, and organizations of workers in informal employment are part of the following networks: We Social Movement (WSM), Intercontinental Network for the Promotion of the Social and Solidarity Economy (RIPESS), Alliance Nationale des Mutualités Chrétiennes (ANMC, Belgium), and INSP!R – International Network for Social Protection and Inclusion Rights.
In a manifesto, this platform of organizations, of which WIEGO is a member, calls on governments, multilateral organizations, local authorities, social movements and citizens to strengthen the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) as a pillar of inclusive development. It emphasizes the need to foster legal, economic and social environments that form a pathway toward decent work for workers in informal employment, with particular attention to ensuring access to social protection and the recognition and remuneration of care work.
Around the world, many workers in informal employment choose to organize around principles of cooperation, solidarity, and democratic management and governance – and have found in the SSE a path to improved incomes, productive capacities, working conditions and more.
The SSE encompasses cooperatives and other associations and organizations engaged in economic, social and environmental activities where the main objective is the well-being of members and the community, rather than a primary focus on profit.
The WIEGO team will participate in plenary sessions, roundtables and panels. Also, in collaboration with the ILO's Cooperative, Social and Solidarity Economy Unit, Parra will make an academic presentation at CIRIEC, the research congress associated with the event. Throughout all interventions the delegation expects to reinforce three central ideas:
- The SSE – especially cooperatives – is a vital mechanism to reduce decent work deficits among workers in informal employment.
- Stronger support and convergence are needed to create enabling environments – economic, legal and political – that strengthen the SSE as a facilitator of decent work for workers in informal employment.
- The SSE must have voice and vote in decision-making spaces about the future of work.
At the meeting, WIEGO and partners aim to grow their visibility as relevant actors in global discussions on the potential of the SSE to promote decent work, and to build alliances that will contribute to advancing the SSE objectives.