In 2025, the ICA established the Cooperative Cultural Heritage programme to safeguard tangible and intangible elements of Co-operative Cultural Heritage (CCH) around the world. The inaugural list featured 32 sites from 25 countries on its website and interactive map at culturalheritage.coop. In 2026, the goal is to include around 35 additional sites from 25 countries - and nominations from ICA members are open now. The call out coincides with the week that marks the UN International Day of Conscience, which aims to build a Culture of Peace.
Cooperatives are founded on the values of democracy, solidarity, openness and more, and contribute to the development of communities through a people-centred approach. The cooperative identity is the sum of all cooperative experiences, and the global cooperative movement is a mosaic of cooperative ideas, practices and heritage advancing sustainable development, social justice and peace within and among communities.
Launched in 2025 at the Itamaraty Palace in Brasilia, as part of the UN International Year of Cooperatives, the CCH programme celebrates places and traditions that embody the legacy, idea and practice of cooperation worldwide. The 2025 launch highlighted an inaugural list of tangible elements or sites connected to the birth and development of cooperative movements, institutions and practices that have shaped societies around the world. The initiative is guided by the ICA CCH Working Group (WG).
The programme describes CCH as encompassing both tangible elements (such as sites, institutions, museums and legacy enterprises) and intangible traditions (including local practices and traditions that safeguard cooperative values, practices and governance systems) of cooperation.
In 2026, the goal is to include around 35 additional sites from 25 countries – nominated by members and verified by the working group – amplifying the geographic and cultural representation of the cooperative movement. In addition to physical sites, ICA will also explore the inclusion of intangible cultural elements that reflect cooperative ideas, practices and traditions. Attention will be given to practices safeguarded under the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003), the FAO Global Important Agricultural Heritage Systems, and more, where a strong cooperative connection can be identified.
This year, the CCH WG appointed Thiago Schmidt (chair of Brazilian cooperative financial institution Sicredi Pioneira) as its new chair for the 2026-2027 term, who emphasised the need to consolidate achievements while expanding global outreach. He added that while it is important to celebrate the scale and achievements of the world’s largest cooperative businesses, there is also a need to acknowledge the movement’s origins.
A strategic priority for the Working Group is the advancement of cultural diplomacy as a means of strengthening the global cooperative movement. To this end, the Group intends to convene an “ICA Circle of Mayors”, bringing together local authorities from cities and regions that host Cooperative Cultural Heritage sites and practices. By creating a dedicated platform for dialogue and collaboration, the initiative will foster closer partnerships between municipalities and cooperatives, while elevating the role of local governments as active custodians of cooperative heritage.
Current sites and elements on the map include museums, sites of long-established cooperative businesses, and places and cities where people live, work and create cooperatively. One listing is the ILO COOPS/SSE unit, which, for the last 106 years, has been promoting and advocating for cooperatives, and continues to place the cooperative agenda at the highest policy tables of the international community.
The ICA-CCH initiative touches on peace, says Santosh Kumar, secretary of the WG, through “recognition of shared cultural heritage bridges gaps among nations and communities, by evidencing the shared heritage of cooperation and cooperatives that exist on both sides of the proverbial ‘borders’”.
This is especially relevant in the context of the ICA’s 2019 Declaration on positive peace through cooperatives, and the recently announced ICA / Cooperatives of the Americas joint Global Conference, hosted this September in Panama under the theme Building bridges: cooperative contributions for a peaceful world.
This initiative is part of the ICA–EU Partnership (2024–2028) – also known as #coops4dev🌍– a five-year international cooperative development programme, co-funded by the European Union, that aims to strengthen the ICA network and position cooperatives as key actors in international development within the EU development agenda.
To find out more, explore the CCH map and submit a nomination, visit culturalheritage.coop/nomination. For queries, please contact nominations@culturalheritage.coop.
