Co-operatives and the Sustainable Development Goals - a Brief

In order to bring co-operative voices into the discussion around the post-2015 development agenda, the Alliance and the International Labour Organization (ILO) have launched an initiative on the contribution of co-operatives to sustainable development. This brief summarizes the main findings of a forthcoming report of the same title, by Frederick O. Wanyama of Maseno University in Kenya. You can read it here.

Sustainable development is at the very core of co-operative enterprises. As a model of business based on ethical values and principles whose goal it is to provide for the needs and aspirations of their members, co-operatives play a pivotal role in responding to local community needs and objectives.

Sustainability, therefore, forms one of the five pillars of the Alliance’s Blueprint for a Co-operative Decade, which aims to position co-operatives as builders of economic, social and environmental sustainability by 2020. The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) acknowledged the role of co-operatives in "contributing to social inclusion and poverty reduction, in particular in developing countries”.

You can also read the Alliance's Position Paper on the Sustainable Development Goals here (published March 2014).