GENEVA (ILO News) – The International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Training Centre of the ILO (ITCILO) marked the United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation today with a special online session bringing together policymakers and technical experts from the Portuguese-speaking African countries (PALOP) and the wider Community of Portuguese-Language Countries (CPLP). The session launched a new Lusophone Community of Practice to support digital solutions for business formalization and social protection.
“South-South cooperation works best when knowledge flows in both directions,” said ILO Assistant Director-General for External Relations and Partnerships Laura Thompson, opening the session. She noted that while PALOP countries share common challenges in advancing formalization and expanding social protection through digitalization, each has built its own institutional experience, and that Brazil’s expertise in these areas complements PALOP innovations. She described the day’s exchange and the launch of the Community of Practice as South-South cooperation “in practice,” built on relationships through which knowledge can keep circulating and being adapted.
The session formed part of a six-week peer-learning cycle on digital solutions for formalization, running from 7 September to 23 October 2026. The cycle connects technical professionals and policymakers from Ministries of Labor, Social Security, Economy, ICT, and Central Banks across PALOP and CPLP countries, offering hands-on technical clinics and supporting the development of tailored national adaptation plans grounded in a South-South cooperation approach.
Speakers included Anita Amorim, Head of the ILO’s Emerging, Special and South-South Partnerships Unit (ESPU), who moderated the session with Carlo Maria Delu’, Senior Programme Officer – Enterprise Development; Juvenal Dengo, Director of the ILO Office in Luanda; Manuel Clarote Lapão, Director for Cooperation at the CPLP Executive Secretariat; Mafalda Troncho, Director of the ILO Office in Lisbon; Vinicius Pinheiro, Director of the ILO Office in Brasília; and labour market specialist Sergei Suarez Dillon Soares, who together addressed South-South and triangular cooperation channels linking PALOP countries, Brazil and the wider Portuguese-speaking space.
Participants took part in an interactive exercise identifying concrete “offers” and “demands” between countries, followed by a live matchmaking segment in which confirmed matches were recorded as commitments for the cycle ahead. The session closed with the official launch of the Lusophone Community of Practice, a permanent space hosted on the South-South Meeting Point (southsouthpoint.net), where participants posted their first contributions live.
Closing remarks highlighted the role of the ESPU PARTNERSHIPS unit and ILO offices in Portugal and Luanda in supporting South-South and triangular partnerships across the Portuguese-speaking space.
The ten-session cycle runs through 23 October 2026, progressing from shared conceptual frameworks to country-specific adaptation, and will conclude with a synthesis clinic producing national adaptation roadmaps for each participating country. More information can be found here: https://southsouthpoint.net/2026/08/25/applications-open-formalizing-a-south-south-network-through-digitization-learning-cycle/