The CISCOS-UGL (International Trade Union Center for Development Cooperation), a non-governmental organization of the General Union of Labor, founded in 2002. 

Our goals is to promote and implement programs to improve living conditions in countries developing, in particular favoring the weakest social groups, namely women and minors, in the context of International Cooperation.

The main mission of CISCOS therefore consists in activating and supporting solidarity and cultural and social growth wherever it is needed, without neglecting the deep ties with the respective countries of origin.

In my capacity as President of Ciscos/Ugl, I firmly believe in the principle of “subsidiarity”, whose implementation provides, especially in the field of cooperation and solidarity with the less favored and guaranteed, the intervention of private individuals, where they are insufficient resources and initiatives of the Public Administration. – già detto sopra 

It is precisely in the field of cooperation and subsidiarity that the UGL wanted, at the time, to be present – even beyond its prerogatives as a “historic” trade union organization – with CISCOS-UGL, a non-governmental organization structured  by then General Secretary Renata Polverini, aimed at developing and implementing rescue strategies for the classes excluded from the production circuits and the protection system, in particular children, women and the elderly. For this purpose, the UGL has equipped itself with an effective tool, as can be a “non-governmental organization”, based on volunteering, but not for this reason without professional skills, entrepreneurial skills and, indeed, experience in the matter of subsidiarity.

In the midst of the complex and dizzying processes of transformation that affect the societies and states of the planet and involve changes in the identities and functions of all social subjects, it is in the interest of a large trade union confederation to mark a presence also in this sector of international cooperation, alongside the specific activity of worker protection, which up until now has been honorably carried out by CISNAL first, then by UGL. Today, in fact, and increasingly the defense of the weakest – like all non-economic activities – cannot be limited by national borders. In the same way that any intervention for the benefit of the less favored cannot be exhausted in safeguarding the jobs, in the sacrosanct claims also, in supervising the dynamics of relations with the employer and the public hand, in protecting pensioners, in the political dialectic aimed at to the continuous improvement of training and safety in the workplace. It is necessary, in our opinion, that these statutory purposes are accompanied by objectives that, for their pursuit, require specific vocations and skills. The very complex of these vocations, aims and resources substantiates the CISCOS which, in the galaxy of subjects belonging to the UGL, has been assigned the task of helping the weakest since its origins.

In this point of view, the CISCOS-UGL has been carrying out for several years, in various parts of the world, several important initiatives, with  the purpose of which is to promote support and cooperation activities,  to be able to integrate every possible support from the authorities and the institutional structures, in a relationship that starts from the formal patronage, passing through the necessary consultations, up to the presentation to the entrepreneurial class, so that more and more interventions will develop in support of the weakest categories, wherever they are needed.