12th regional conference of Co-operatives of the Americas
Co-operatives of the Americas announced the celebration of its 12th Regional Conference on the theme “Closing gaps towards the 2020 vision”, which will take pace in the city of Panama, between 14 and 18 September 2015. The event is co-organised by the Latin-American Confederation of Credit and Saving Co-operatives (COLAC).
The year 2015 marks half of the “Co-operative Decade” and, as such, the new edition of the Regional Conference of Co-operatives of America is a good moment to put in balance and reflect on the advancements made by co-operatives in the region and the obstacles that have been faced. Moreover, it will highlight the lessons learnt until this moment to draw conclusions and direct strategies so that the co-operative movement contributes to achieving the Vision 2020 proposed by the International Co-operative Alliance.
The objectives set out for the event are the following:
-Analyse the main difficulties faced by the region to achieving the objectives of participation, sustainability, identity, judicial aspect and capital and propose solutions
-share successful experiences that prove co-operation is the best enterprise model to face economic, political, social and environmental challenges faced by societies in the Americas region
-stimulate the debate of ideas and proposals to generate the conditions for an effective coordination, exchange and common action among co-operatives of the Americas, that would allow the consolidation of their enterprise model for the year 2020.
As the tradition requires, the regional conference will be the biggest regional co-operative event of the year and will serve as bring together representatives of co-operatives of the Americas, who will be joined by various sectors of the civil society (NGOs and other organsations of the solidarity economy), national government bodies in charge of the promotion, development and regulation of co-operatives, other government officials and legislators, as well as representatives from academic institutions and international organisations.
You can read more and register for the conference and reserve your hotel through the event’s website http://www.aciamericas.coop/conferencia2015.
The first housing co-operative for mutual aid is inaugurated in Haiti thanks to the solidarity of the global co-operative movement
On April 14, 23 families, members of Kooperativ Lojman Men nan Men -KOLOMM- (Hand-in-Hand Housing Co-operative), received the keys to their homes from representatives of Cooperatives of the Americas, COOMEVA of Colombia, Fundasal of El Salvador, We Effect and Heifer, co-operation agencies from Sweden and the United States respectively, America Solidarity of Chile, GARR of Haiti and local authorities of Lascahobas, the commune where the new co-operative is located.
All families making up the co-operative lost their homes during the earthquake that struck Haiti in 2010. Moved by the magnitude of the tragedy, the international co-operative movement represented by the International Co-operative Alliance began a solidarity campaign to raise funds to aid the victims and contribute to the country’s reconstruction. Approximately $400,000 was allocated to the promotion, technical assistance and construction of 23 homes.
For this project cooperatives from Japan, Malaysia, Cyprus, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Argentina, UK and Czech Republic, and others countries have contributed around USD $ 400,000.
Ramón Imperial, on behalf of the International Co-operative Alliance, congratulated the co-operators for their great effort and work on building their homes, while encouraging them to further strengthen the co-operative to face the new challenges that lie ahead, such as the provision of water and electricity. The co-operative is the way to solve these problems, as the Haitian government and the state lack the capacity to meet the basic needs and rights of its people.
Manuel Mariño, Director of Co-operatives of the Americas, also recalled the early meetings with families in 2011 to begin planning the building project, when the goal of decent houses seemed a distant dream and scepticism about a better future prevailed. He also stressed the importance of cooperatives to improve the living conditions of the Haitian people and thanked the support received from Heifer, We Effect, America Solidarity, Fundasal and FUCVAM of Uruguay, an organisation that promotes the self-help housing model on the continent.
Competitiveness and digital economy in co-operatives of the Americas
More than 100 directors and employees of co-operatives from 13 countries of the region of the Americas took part in the International conference on “Co-operative competitiveness and the digital economy in the within the framework of the social and solidarity economy”, realised in San José of Costa Rica, between 4 and 7 may. The event was organised by Co-operatives of the Americas jointly with the University of Kennesaw (Georgia, United States), the Confederation of Co-operatives of Caribbean, Centre and South America (CCC-CA), The Centre for Co-operative Training and Formation (CENECOOP) and the University FUNDEPOS, with the endorsement of the International Centre of Training for Local Authorities (CIFAL) tied to the United Nations.
The main aim of the event was to promote co-operation among co-operatives, governments, universities, financial institutions and NGOs to benefit from the competitive advantages of co-operatives and achieve an integration of the digital economy within the framework of the social and solidarity economy. We are all witnessing the profound changes the world has experienced within the last years due to phenomena of globalisation and technologic development. As a result, not only the way in which people communicate among themselves and within their working, commercial, financial and political environments has changed, but the business environment has also changed, having levels of dynamism and competitiveness never seen before. This reality represents, at the same time, a challenge and an opportunity for co-operative enterprises, being essential to rethink strategies and concepts of all our enterprises, whatever their size or sector of activity.
Within this process of rethinking we find the necessity to adapt to the new digital economy, which makes an intensive use of communication and information technologies (TICs) to obtain appropriate access and make intelligent use of the enormous volumes of information available today.
The International Conference was an excellent opportunity to find out at first hand about the experiences and strategies led by some organisations within the co-operative movement in the region.
After the success of the conference, organisers ratified a previously signed agreement to boost and strengthen competitiveness and sustainability within co-operatives in the Americas. Specifically, two immediate goals were defined: creating a Consortium of Co-operative Competitiveness made up by academic institution in Canada, USA and Latin America, and developing education and training projects that promote the advancement and economic development of American co-operatives.
The proposed Consortium will offer a think tank for research projects, an academic magazine specialised in financial and economic information for co-operatives and the implementation of initiatives that contribute to information transparency and execution and continuation of projects.
Guatemalan co-operatives adopt the global co-operative marque and present their new flag
On 26 March, as part of its annual General Assembly, the Guatemalan Confederation of Co-operative Federations (CONFECOOP) and its affiliated federations agreed to adopt the new global co-operative marque and present a new flag to be used by the movement across the country.
The new flag features in its centre the COOP marque in white letters over a green background. With this decision the previous emblem of seven horizontal colours in an iris ark, which had been used by Guatemalan co-operatives since 1923 is being substituted.
The agreement reached by the organisations representing Guatemalan co-operatives establishes that new emblems will be the official emblems of the sector. Likewise, they decided to realize a massive disclosure with the aim of strengthening the identity and public image of co-operatives at national level.
José Saquic, president of CONFECOOP, pointed out that “with this agreement we seek to highlight the scope and proposals of organisations of the sector through a common emblem which, from now on, will be present in all activities developed by the organised co-operative movement in Guatemala”.
With this initiative, Guatemala becomes the second country, after Costa Rica, in which the whole national co-operative movement decides to adopt the new emblems for co-operative identity proposed by the International Co-operative Alliance, within the framework of the Plan for a Co-operative Decade, with the aim that the global co-operative marque will become the most well-recognised ethical marque by 2020.
Co-operatives of the Americas extends its training offer
For the year 2015 Co-operatives of the Americas has expanded its offer of training and educational activities, adding some new proposals aimed, primarily, at co-operatives of Latin America, which add to the traditional training programmes that have been provided in the last years across dozens of organisations from many countries in the region.
Currently the training offer of Co-operatives of the Americas, incudes the following options:
-Training programmes for facilitators in Co-operative Education, leaving from the Pedagogical Model of Co-operative Education developed by the organisation itself
-Management training programme for managers and co-operative board members
-Seminars on governance, ethics and leadership and a methodology, also developed by the organisation, to evaluate governance in co-operatives
-Programme of high management for updating managers of credit and saving co-operatives
-technical seminars on risks en saving and credit co-operatives
-virtual training courses in Social Co-operative Balance
-Training Course for supervisors in good co-operative governance
To develop these training proposals and apply these in different co-operatives across the region, agreements have been made with other co-operative organisations and universities such as Fundepos of Costa Rica and UNTREF of Argentina.
The newest component of the package of services is the Training programme for facilitators and educators, which aims to respond to one of the main challenges faced by co-operatives in the region and across the world: to stand out from competitors. This requires increasing competitively levels, production and professionalism of human capital to respond with opportunity and quality to the new requirements of the market. An enterprise that aims to be competitive has to invest in awareness, skills, abilities and attitude of its people. An ideal method to achieves these aims is applying processes of teaching and learning that require a special allocation of resources for developing the ability of the people in charge of training and formation within every co-operative. The training programme for facilitators will be presented for the first time in Peru and it is expected to be implemented in Ecuador in June.
For more information on the proposals of Co-operatives of the Americas write to educoop@aciamericas.coop.
Photo: launch of the co-operative housing project in Haiti
