Cooperatives in Development: Cooperatives Europe releases two collections of case studies
"Building Inclusive Enterprises in Africa” and “Building People-Centred Enterprises in Latin America”: these are the two latest publications on cooperatives in development stemming from the work of the Cooperatives Europe Development Platform. The documents were drafted in collaboration with The Co-operative College and Kooperationen, and they follow recent collaborations with Cooperatives of the Americas and ICA Africa.
Cooperatives Europe reacts to the EU Summer Energy Package
On Wedensday 15 July 2015 the EU Commission published proposals on self-consumption and consumers. Cooperatives Europe considers the texts a good basis for getting citizens and their energy co-operatives at the center of the energy transition. Nevertheless, much remains to be done towards the development of a more coherent and supportive legal framework for community energy and other local actors.
Dirk Vansintjan, President of the European Federation of renewable energy co-operatives, Rescoop.eu, says: “In this guidance document on self-consumption of renewable energy we read some good things. At the same time self-consumption is not just about putting some PV panels on the roof of a citizen. It is above all about what citizens all across Europe do together in a growing number of community energy initiatives (REScoops). That aspect still needs to be developed more by the EU Commission.”
Klaus Niederländer, Director of Cooperatives Europe, adds: “In the Consultation on the Electricity Market Design we will suggest to the EU Commission to broaden their view on what citizens and their REScoops can do already and their future growth potential to democratise the energy market, which belongs to all citizens. Among our national members we count more than 1,000 REScoops of which the majority has been supplying their members with electricity for almost or more than a century already. We will demonstrate to the EU Commission that the cooperative entrepreneurial approach is most suited for citizens and SME’s in the energy sector.” Read more (in English).
Ready, Steady, Coop! - a practical guide for cooperative start-ups
On 21 September Cooperatives Europe and the partners of the CoopStarter project released Ready, Steady, Coop!. This publication is intended to support co-operative development agencies that accompany young people who want to start their co-operative business. The guide helps organisation run a successful co-operative mentoring programme that is open to all entrepreneur who intend to start a co-operative. It describes the steps to follow to make sure that a potential entrepreneur receives strong support in the start-up stage of his/her business.
"Ready, Steady, Coop!" is also complemented by a whole range of practical tools which can be used during the mentoring process: best practice cases, country profiles and a series of questions that might arise during the process.
This document is one of the outcomes of the CoopStarter project, an initiative co-funded by the European Union aiming to make the co-operative business model known to younger generations and to accompany people willing to set up a co-operative through the start-up phase.
Mirko Nodari, Communications Manager at Cooperatives Europe, commented: "We are proud of this document. Far too often young entrepreneurs fail because they lack of a professional support. By joining the experience and intelligence of our members we have created this tool to strengthen the support provided to young entrepreneurs and increase their success rate. More co-operatives means more jobs, more wealth, more community."
European Network of Young Cooperators meets in Bologna
On 22-23 September Cooperatives Europe network of young co-operators held its second meeting in Bologna. The event was hosted by Generazioni-Legacoop, Oop!-Confcooperative, and AGCI. Young co-operators from 12 European countries met to continue building up their structure.
Gathering 80 young co-operators from 12 European countries, this event was organised, in order to define the network’s priorities and action plan following its launch at the 2015 Cooperatives Europe General Assembly in Paris.
Collective and participatory workshops in Bologna resulted in three main objectives for the network:
· Promoting co-operative entrepreneurship among young people;
· Encouraging youth representation on the Board of cooperative businesses and institutions;
· Broadening business opportunities for youth-lead start-up co-operatives.
To put these words into actions young co-operators are now working on setting up a democratic structure, organised around open and participatory working groups.
