The International Cooperative Alliance and Cooperative of the Americas General Assemblies and joint Global Conference are being hosted in Panama in September, and the first speakers are being confirmed.
Taking the theme Building bridges: cooperative contributions for a peaceful world, the main conference is taking place on Wednesday 16 and Thursday 17 September, and will feature a combination of high-level addresses, keynote speeches, panels and workshops.
Panel debates will look at how cooperatives contribute to peace (The Cooperative Path to Peaceful Multilateralism, 16 September, 09:30-10.45) and the future of the movement (Local Roots to Global Impact, 17 Sept, 11:30-12:30), while workshops will explore the themes of the ICA 2026-2030 Strategy (Practice, Promote, Protect).
Delegates will be welcomed by José Raul Mulino Quintero (President of Panama), Erika Vargas (Executive Director, IPACOOP, Panama) and José Alves de Souza Neto (President, Cooperatives of the Americas), and hear high-level addresses from other host country dignitaries and international cooperative leadership.
Sabelo Mbokazi (Head of Labour, Employment & Migration at the African Union Commission), María Ortiz Pérez (Executive Director for Leadership Initiatives, Aspen Institute, Mexico) and Donna Dizon (CLIMBS Cooperative, Philippines) will be among those taking part in the panel debates.
Workshop speakers include Bibiana Aido (UN Women, Panama), Ana Aguirre Uriz (Dirección de Gobierno Abierto y Buen Gobierno, Basque Country, Spain), Harsh Sanghani (ICA Youth Committee President, India) and Sarah Alldred (Fund for International Cooperative Development, UK), David Fernández Puyana (University for Peace to the United Nations) and Akkanut Wantanasombut (Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University).
Workshop participants will discuss the three pillars of the ICA Strategy: Practice (Building a sustainable cooperative economy through people, data, and finance), Promote (Cooperative stories and democratic global governance) and Protect (Safeguarding cooperative identity and values for a peaceful multilateralism), and provide inputs for a final declaration to be presented at the close of the conference.
“The Global Conference programme is an opportunity to hear from such a diverse range of cooperative speakers, practitioners and allies,” said Marc Noel, conference programme lead for the ICA. “In a world where conflicts continue to make life difficult for so many, building bridges has never been more important. Our speakers will share experiences from across the globe, speak about their own cooperative contributions for a peaceful world, and explore cooperative ways forward, together.”
Visit www.icapanama2026.coop for further speaker announcements in the coming weeks.
