On 16 September 2025, the ILO participated in the webinar "Care as Market Opportunity: The Cooperative Difference" organized by Cooperatives Europe and Cooperativas de las Américas. The webinar was the first of the two thematic webinars by the two regional chapters of the International Cooperative Alliance, aiming to foster bi-regional cooperative dialogues and create a platform to share good practices across Europe and the Americas.
With around 60 participants, the webinar included a wide range of speakers from the two regions, including from the UN, the EU, and representatives of the cooperative movement from both regions and at the global level. The speakers shared policy priorities and on-going initiatives on shaping the care economy, highlighting the urgency to promote decent work and transition to the formal economy in the care economy.
© Cooperatives Europe and Cooperativas de las Américas
In his remarks as part of a panel discussion, Waltteri Katajamäki, Technical Specialist on the SSE in the ILO's Cooperative, Social and Solidarity Economy Unit (COOP/SSE), highlighted the growing urgency of addressing the global care gap, noting that much of care work continues to be undervalued, underpaid and predominantly carried out by women in informal and often precarious conditions. At the same time, he emphasized that the care economy holds enormous potential, with ILO research estimating that investments in this sector could create up to 300 million jobs worldwide over the next decade. He underlined that this challenge can also be seen as an opportunity to build stronger care systems that promote decent work, gender equality and inclusiveness - areas where cooperatives and the wider social and solidarity economy (SSE) can play a transformative role.
Katajamäki further stressed the ILO's unique position as the only UN agency with an explicit mandate on cooperatives and the wider SSE and the care economy - reaffirmed through recent international resolutions on the SSE in 2022 and on the care economy in 2024. Drawing on practical experiences from Latin America, he pointed to initiatives in Colombia, Bolivia and Honduras that demonstrate how cooperatives and other SSE entities can address concrete care needs - from supporting women-led groups and creating municipal care models, to improving visibility and coordination of care services. He emphasized that local ownership, co-creation and government support are essential for these initiatives to thrive and become embedded in national care strategies, ultimately ensuring that care cooperatives, many multistakeholder in nature, contribute to both quality service provision and decent work. Watch the full recording here. More info on the ICA Euro-American Dialogues on care here.
