This joint brief was prepared by the United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force on Social and Solidarity Economy (UNTFSSE), the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Olivier De Schutter, and the Global Coalition for Social Justice.
The brief examines how the social and solidarity economy (SSE) can contribute to the forthcoming Roadmap for Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth, a set of post-growth policy proposals for poverty eradication being developed by a growing alliance of UN agencies, civil society, unions and academic experts.
The SSE offers a well-established approach to advancing a human rights economy and supporting the eradication of poverty beyond growth. By fostering participatory, inclusive and sustainable economic models, the SSE provides practical pathways to reorient economies away from profit-maximization as the organizing principle of economic life toward dignity, equality and well-being.
Building on the Special Rapporteur’s 2024 report to the Human Rights Council on Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth, which identified the SSE as a key driver of the transition from a growth-dependent, profit-driven economy to a human rights economy within planetary boundaries, this brief provides a deeper analysis of the SSE’s transformative potential.
It details how SSE entities – including cooperatives, mutual societies and social enterprises – contribute to decent work, care, more equitable resource distribution, workplace participation and gender equity, and climate resilience. Importantly, the brief identifies practical policy levers that governments, development partners and multilateral institutions can mobilise to strengthen the SSE and move beyond growth-centred models.
Read the full policy brief: Advancing a human rights economy through the social and solidarity economy: Pathways to the eradication of poverty beyond growth
