While the United Nations (UN) is working on establishing the post-2015 development agenda, CICOPA, the International Organisation of Industrial and Service Cooperatives, has published the results of the study “Cooperatives as builders of sustainable development”. The research highlights how worker, social and artisans’ co-operatives are contributing to sustainable development.
UN’s post-2015 development agenda process is centred on an integrated approach that reflects all pillars of sustainability: social, economic and environmental. This approach is in line with the one of co-operative enterprises, which are organisations focused on achieving economic, social and environmental sustainability.
According to CICOPA’s research, there are over 111,200 co-operatives across the world active in industrial and service sectors, which provide 4 million jobs. Social co-operatives also make a great contribution to sustainable development, by providing community services and fight against poverty and social exclusion.
The research reveals that co-operatives pursue similar goals as part of their development strategy. These reflect the seven co-operative values and principles.
Co-operatives provide services for their members, which respond to fundamental human needs and aspirations and they also play a key role in capacity building and empowerment through education of training. By joining co-operatives, members, who own and democratically control the enterprises, get to fulfil fundamental needs and aspirations. Co-operatives also place a strong emphasis on community-based development, benefiting members and those living in the local community.
CICOPA distinguishes three levels in the co-operative development strategy. At micro level, co-operatives put in place various measures related to governance, education, training or capital management within the enterprise. At a meso level, co-operatives work with each other to create business support institutions or federations. Co-operatives also seek to influence public policies and legislative framework to enable the development of co-operatives and international co-operation among co-operatives and co-operative federations, this representing the macro-level approach within their development strategy.
The report highlights that co-operatives in general, and those from the CICOPA network in particular, have proven to be more resilient during the financial crisis.
The study reads: “The resilience proven by co-operatives relies on their strong aptitude for innovative strategy, at the organisational, social, managerial and technical level, which is applied on the 3 levels of the co-operative development strategy”.
As people centred enterprises, co-operatives help promote inclusiveness. CICOPA estimates that there are around 12,600 social co-operatives in the world, most of them providing services for the elderly and disabled people.
The report calls for the promotion and development of co-operatives in the Post-2015 Development Agenda, highlighting the contribution of co-operatives to employment creation, empowering employees, setting up collaborative networks and responding to the needs of various communities. The full report is available at online.
