The International Day
of Cooperatives is a United Nations day celebrated annually on 2 July.
Cooperative
businesses are based on ethics, values, and a set of fundamental principles
that keep people, rather than profit, at the centre of their aims. Cooperatives
can be a self-help tool for people to create their own economic opportunities
through the power of the collective and pull themselves out of poverty. They
re-invest in the communities in which they operate, securing not only the
livelihoods of their members but also increasing the wealth of the community as
a whole.
By being sources of
decent work, spaces for democracy, peace building, and economic transformational
means, cooperatives can be a real force in communities. For example, the top
300 cooperatives alone generate $2.5 trillion in annual turnover, which is more
than the GDP of France).
The 2017
International Day of Cooperatives will focus on ‘inclusion’ under the theme ‘Cooperatives ensure
no one is left behind’ which complements the priority theme of the 2017 United Nations
High-level Political Forum for Sustainable Development: ‘Eradicating poverty
and promoting prosperity in a changing world’.
The Committee for the Promotion and Advancement of Cooperatives (COPAC) will host the
observance of the 2017 International Day of Cooperatives during the High-level Political
Forum. The event will feature speakers from COPAC’s membership, co-operatives
in the field, and Permanent Representations to the United Nations.
COPAC is a
multi-stakeholder partnership of global public and private institutions that
promotes and advances people-centred, self-sustaining cooperative enterprises,
guided by the principles of sustainable development – economic, social and
environmental – in all aspects of its work. The Committee’s current members are
the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), the International
Labour Organization (ILO), the International Co-operative Alliance, the Food
and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the World
Farmers’ Organisation.
MARTINA NICOLLS is an international
aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different
in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament
(2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a
Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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