Europe

AJEEC NISPED of Israel opened the doors to the first COVID-19 Situation Room in the Negev Bedouin community to  centralize efforts to prevent the spread of the virus. The Situation Room is a partnership between all the civil society and cooperative organizations in the Negev and all local municipalities.

The Centrosoyuz of Russia is delivering basic goods and medicine to elderly and disabled people in most regions of Russia and essential goods to people living in remote and rural areas in self-isolation by means of ‘avtolavka’ (COOP food trucks). Regional cooperative unions worked in close cooperation with regional emergency response centers to assist in preventing the spreading of virus and contribute to stable food supply and monitoring of prices and distance learning for students of educational organisations of consumer cooperatives.

Turkey’s Central Union of Agricultural Credit Cooperatives took a series of measures to protect its members against COVID-19 and helped primary cooperatives continue their grassroots work. All enforcement and bankruptcy proceedings carried out throughout the country have been suspended as of 30 April 2020. The union offered flexibility on loan payments. A force majeure note was recorded in the Register in the Risk Center to address farmers credit debt. Loan principal and interest amounts set to expire in April and May will be postponed for 2 months without interest.

Sweden based We Effect gathered information from their partner organizations (mostly cooperatives) in 23 countries and ran a Twitter campaign using #coronavoices. In collaboration with 30 organizations, this leading global NGO advocated with lawmakers to defend the 1% of Gross National Product dedicated to developing cooperatives. Complete coverage of European countries’ cooperative response prepared by Cooperatives Europe can be found here.

Bulgaria’s Central Cooperative Union acted fast and created an online platform called COOP CARE to facilitate immediate requests of essential food products and PPE, and to keep the cooperative community abreast on the development of the pandemic. In their testimonial, the CCU-Bulgaria expressed gratitude to Italian cooperatives that delivered disinfectants and cleaning detergents for consumption throughout Bulgaria.