The UN Task Force on Social and Solidarity Economy (UNTFSSE) held its 37th regular meeting

The 37th UNTFSSE meeting was virtually held on 21 October 2021 and brought together almost 50 participants from seven UN member organizations (ILO, UNRISD, UNDESA, UNDP, UNCTAD, ESCAP) and OECD, thirteen observer organizations (CIRIEC, EURICSE, Catalyst2030, EMES, DIESIS, GSEF, Euclid Network, Social Economy Europe, SSE International Forum, RIPESS, CSEND, EESC and ICA) and two resource persons.

News | 22 October 2021
The meeting started with the Chair welcoming ESCAP, as a new member to the UNTFSSE and the Growth team at the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) of UNDP New York, who recently joined the UNTFSSE. A discussion around priority objectives of the UNTFSSE workplan, including the preparation of the upcoming UNTFSSE technical symposium planned for December 2021.

Updates on the ongoing and future activities of the Knowledge Hub were shared, including the recent launch of three UNTFSSE papers on SSE statistics and information on the the second UNTFSSE conference scheduled for fall 2022.

During the meeting the findings of the mapping initiative on exploring the existing training/sensitization curricula on SSE were presented by ITC-ILO. Updates from different Working groups of the UNTFSSE were shared, including around “SSE innovation: The funding challenge”; “creation of a new SSE Stakeholder Group at the High-Level Political Forum”; and “regional activities of the UNTFSSE”.

The meeting continued with the presentation of the current communication strategy of the task force, including the tools on sharing relevant member information especially pertaining to events, projects and publications.

As part of updates from members, EESC shared its approach and work related to SSE, and provided other members with information on their recent and upcoming activities on SSE. Common synergies for future events were also discussed, in particular within the framework of the 12th ILO Academy on Social and Solidarity Economy (Lisbon, Portugal, 15-26 Nov 2021) – SSE Collective Brain ILO Academy on SSE and the World Cooperative Congress.