As 2011 draws to a close, so will the International Year for People of African Descent. This year has highlighted the need to promote and protect the 200 million people of African descent that live in the Americas and the millions more living outside the African continent. The coming year will highlight another important theme in international development.
The United Nations (UN) has designated 2012 as the International Year of Cooperatives. Highlighting the role that cooperatives can play in social and economic development, the theme of the year will be “Cooperative Enterprises Build a Better World.”
According to the UN’s Division for Social Policy and Development, cooperatives are “business enterprises owned and controlled by the very members that they serve.”
As such, decisions made are balanced by two factors: the motivation for profit and the needs or interests of their members and communities. Cooperative may take many forms, but all are member-driven.
Cooperatives can help reduce poverty, generate employment and facilitate social integration to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in poor countries by the year 2015.
The commemorative year was passed by UN General Assembly resolution A/RES/64/136. Under the resolution, states are urged to facilitate the establishment of cooperatives aimed at enabling poverty-stricken or otherwise vulnerable groups, including women and youth.
An example of cooperatives that benefit children, even here in Canada, are childcare “co-ops.” According to a 2009 report commissioned by the Canadian Council on Social Development, Saskatchewan is home to more childcare, recreation, and economic development co-ops than any other province in the country.
Meanwhile, the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India provides much-needed services for working women, including childcare and maternity benefits. The Soweto Home-Based Care Givers Co-operative in South Africa provides nursing care, transportation and food packages to persons living with HIV/AIDS—an example of a “new generation” of cooperatives in sub-Saharan Africa, notes the International Labour Organization.
The UN has found increasing evidence that cooperatives contribute to the realization of several MDGs, including universal primary education, promoting gender equality and reducing child mortality.
In fact, the theme of this year’s International Day for Cooperatives was ““Youth, the Future of Cooperatives,” to highlight the inclusion of young men and women in the development process to break the cycle of poverty.