ILO reaffirms social and solidarity economy as a key driver of social innovation

LUXEMBOURG CITY (ILO News) - The International Labour Organization (ILO) took part in the first Global Government Summit, held from 9 to 11 April 2025 in Luxembourg City. Hosted by the Ministry of Labour of Luxembourg, the Summit brought together government officials, multilateral institutions, and other stakeholders.

Rie Vejs-Kjeldgaard, Director of the ILO's Sustainable Enterprises, Productivity and Just Transition Department (ENTERPRISES), contributed to the high-level panel at the opening of the Summit. She highlighted that the ILO is a century-old social innovation, created in 1919 with a tripartite governance structure. This structure brings together real economy actors-workers, businesses, and governments-to shape international labour policies and standards. She noted that with its 187 Member States, including those present at the event, the ILO recognizes the social and solidarity economy as driver of social innovation for addressing deficits in decent work and social justice. Kjeldgaard pointed out that ILO's long-standing efforts in promoting cooperatives and the wider SSE have been instrumental in fostering diversity, resilience, and sustainability among enterprises while advancing a just transition towards environmentally sustainable economies and societies for all.

Panellists at the opening ceremony of the Global Government Summit. Simel Esim speaks at the Global Government Summit

Simel Esim, Head of the ILO's Cooperative, Social and Solidarity Economy Unit (COOP/SSE) and Chair of the UN Inter-Agency Task Force on Social and Solidarity Economy (UNTFSSE), emphasized the importance of shared terminology, robust statistics, and coordinated public policy in advancing social innovation. She highlighted that the definition of the social and solidarity economy adopted by the International Labour Conference in 2022-and reaffirmed by subsequent United Nations General Assembly resolutions-has become an important reference point for developing shared terminology across legal, policy and statistical frameworks. She also noted that the ILO is leading global efforts to strengthen statistical visibility through two technical working groups-one with the Committee for the Promotion and Advancement of Cooperatives (COPAC) on measuring the economic contribution of cooperatives, and the other with the UNTFSSE on developing methodologies for statistics on the broader social and solidarity economy.

She underscored that what makes social innovations meaningful-and worth scaling-is the extent to which their agents, means and ends are social. Social innovations, she noted, are more transformative when they are collectively and democratically generated, when they reorganize societal relationships to expand capabilities and reduce inequalities, and when they are oriented towards the common good of present and future generations. She reiterated the ILO's commitment to supporting Member States and social partners in building conducive environments grounded in the ILO's normative foundations.

The Summit concluded with the adoption of the Luxembourg Declaration: Shaping the future of social innovation, which outlines a rights-based, context-sensitive approach to social innovation that is inclusive-notably of women in rural areas, youth, persons with disabilities, and those in vulnerable situations-and that seeks to benefit all sectors of society while promoting a culture of diversity, equality and inclusion. The Declaration recalls the G20 Fortaleza Declaration on the role that the social and solidarity economy (SSE) could play in generating quality employment, promoting fair working conditions, and supporting environmental sustainability within just transition processes. It acknowledges the SSE's contribution to social innovation and its growing importance, referencing texts such as the ILO resolution concerning decent work and the SSE (2022) and the UN General Assembly resolutions on promoting the SSE for sustainable development (2023, 2024). Among the priority actions identified are the promotion of enabling environments, tailored financing and measurement, as well as capacity building and knowledge sharing.