From informal to formal jobs: The contribution of cooperatives in Colombia

Labour informality remains a critical challenge for Colombia with over 60% of workers in informal jobs with no access to social security benefits, except health. To address the inherent challenges posed by a large informal sector, this paper explores the role that cooperatives can play in driving formalisation in Colombia. It presents the negative impacts of informality on the economy and how the social and solidarity economy, and cooperatives in particular, offer an important model for informal workers to transit towards formalisation (Section 1). It provides facts and figures about the cooperative sector as well as factors contributing to its development and barriers that hinder its expansion (Section 2). It considers the benefits and challenges of the compliance based approach to supervise cooperatives and provides policy orientations to strengthen the sector (Section 3).