South Asia Cooperatives Regional Consultation
A two-day Regional Consultation of South Asia Cooperatives was held on 14-15 December in Kathmandu, Nepal. The opening ceremony was attended, among others, by Mr Chitra Bahadur KC, deputy prime minister and minister for Co-operatives and Poverty Alleviation, Nepal and Mr Arjun Bahadur Thapa, secretary general, SAARC. Mr Bishnu Prasad Paudel, finance minister, government of Nepal and Dr Yuba Raj Khatiwada, vice-chair of the National Planning Commission took part in the closing ceremony.
The Regional Consultation discussed in earnest the issues relating to the Sustainable Development Goals, in association with the Alliance’s Blueprint for a Co-operative Decade. Delegates focused particularly on five themes: Food Sovereignty, New Co-operative Approaches (Innovation), Co-operatives and the Transition of the Informal into the Formal Economy, Regional and Global engagement of Co-operatives, and Enabling Environments. Country presentations by six participating countries in the South Asia Region, namely Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, were followed by group discussions.
The recommendations included:
-adopting a cluster based approach in an effort to mitigate the migration from rural to urban areas;
-skill development undertaken in a manner that results in the actual establishment and development of sound co-operatives; provision of “start-up funds”, not “subsidies” to stimulate and generate members’ contributions to the development of their own co-operative
-strong and direct linkages built and developed between producers and consumers co-operatives - in an effort to stabilise pricing, strengthen value chains and establish sound co-operative branding
-strengthening existing public-co-operative partnership and building new ones, on an equal basis to channel government programmes in a responsible, transparent and effective manner
-promotion and establishment of broad-based engagement of co-operatives with multiple stakeholders, including the media, parliamentarians, international organisations, NGOs etc., in order to broaden the scope and involvement of co-operatives in public domain nationally, regionally, as well as internationally; and the development of new co-operative legislation to be more responsive to contemporary issues and amenable to new co-operative approaches.
Opportunities to improve Value Chain through Fair Trade and Halal Certification
The Malaysia Business Office of the Alliance for Asia and Pacific has organised a seminar in Kuala Lumpur to explore opportunities to improve value chain through Fair Trade and Halal Certification. The seminar, which took place on 2-3 December 2015, was hosted by ANGKASA (Malaysian National Co-operative Movement), the Japanese Consumers’ Co-operative Union (JCCU), and the National Agricultural Co-operative Federation (NACF), Korea.
The event was attended by 40 participants from 12 countries, namely China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Korea Mongolia, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Vietnam. The seminar included presentations from experts in the field, with co-operative practitioners sharing experience and field visits. Mr Erwin Novianto provided an overview of Fair Trade International, the premium that fair trade products attracted, and the opportunities for co-operatives in this respect. Ms Han Geumee traced the history of iCOOP’s association with fairtrade (since 2007) and talked about their partnership with 17 producer organisations from 12 countries.
Ms Elizabeth Dellina, from Panay Fairtrade Center, Philippines, spoke about their co-operative’s association with iCOOP Korea in sourcing products such as mascobado sugar, ginger, and banana. Mr Jamie Rammie, from the Halal Development Corporation (HDC), presented an overview of the USD $1.5tn Halal market and HDC’s role in promoting halal business. Mr Mohd Naim Aziz explained the requirements of JAKIM (Malaysian Halal certification) and its recognition in over 63 countries. Mr Rushdi Siddiqui, Co-founder and chief executive of Zilzar, gave a comprehensive overview of Zilzar, the leading e-Halal (e)commerce platform. Mr Kim Moon from NACF spoke about the importance they were attaching to halal products and their target to export USD $200m by 2020.
