Formalizing in South-South Networks through Digitalization
September 7 – October 23, 2026
In Portuguese-speaking African countries, reforms regarding formalization, social protection, and digitalization are progressing at a good pace. However, the systems that support them—business registries, social records, digital payments, employment services—remain fragmented and poorly interconnected, and informality persists as a dominant characteristic of the labor markets.
At the same time, these countries share similar challenges, similar institutional frameworks, and a common working language. A solution tested in one country does not have to be reinvented in a neighboring country: it must be found, understood, and adapted.
This is what this cycle makes systematic. Over six weeks, ten online sessions bring together the institutions responsible for designing and operating these systems. In each session, an institution presents its own experience; then, a technical clinic addresses the specific problems that the participants bring with them. Each country leaves with an adaptation note — a record of what it learned and what it intends to apply in its context—and the exchange continues after the cycle in a Lusophone Community of Practice.
The cycle is aimed at ILO constituents — technical staff and policymakers involved in the design and implementation of digital solutions for formalization and social protection — in the six PALOP countries: Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe. Participation is also open to the wider CPLP area.
Participation in the program is fully covered by a scholarship for candidates from the six PALOP countries — Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe. The scholarship covers the entire registration fee. The scholarship is linked to the presentation of a good practice with a South-South and Triangular Cooperation dimension — not a generic case study, but a concrete experience with digital solutions for formalization, developed in your institution or country. The submission template and instructions will be sent after application.