On 21 November 2023, the ILO COOP/SSE Unit organized a clinic for 30 women entrepreneurs from indigenous and local communities from around the world. The training focused on business groups and cooperatives as viable economic aggregators to help members improve access to services, markets and other public and private actors in challenging contexts and among vulnerable communities.

Mr Rayann Koudaih, ILO Technical Officer on Cooperatives and Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) Development, and Ms Marian Boquiren, ILO Senior Master Trainer on Cooperative Development provided the clinic, as part of the WIPO Training, Mentoring and Match-Making Program for Women Entrepreneurs from Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities. The clinic included an interactive orientation session on business groups and cooperatives for use by women entrepreneurs to help them grow their businesses and create decent jobs.

The session included examples of cooperatives contributing to women’s economic empowerment. It also provided an opportunity for the participants to familiarize themselves with ILO capacity building tools. In particular, the trainers highlighted Think.COOP, Start.COOP, and Manage.COOP (forthcoming) as relevant for women entrepreneurs to form, join, or expand their prospective/existing cooperatives.

This was the third edition of the WIPO programme that the ILO has contributed to through a training session. See here ILO contributions for the 2019 and 2021 editions of the programme. See ILO COOP/SSE brief on cooperatives and indigenous peoples here.