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In commemoration of the International Day of Cooperatives (July 4), a panel and interactive dialogue was held at United Nations New York Headquarters on 8 July. Centered on the theme, "Choose cooperatives, choose equality" the discussion focused on equality in cooperative ownership as a path to sustainable development.
Cooperatives are people-focused enterprises, often strongly embedded in the communities that they serve.Equality is one of the six guiding values for cooperative enterprises, and open and voluntary memberships is a practice that cooperatives should always uphold. Cooperatives are also run as a democratic, participatory decision-making systems of "one member, one vote." Discussion during the panel highlighted these strengths of the business model and the contributions of these characteristics to development.
The panelists included Daniela Bas (Director of United Nations DESA Division for Social Policy and Development), Sharon Brennen-Haylock (Director of FAO NY), Emila Gatto (Minister Plenipotentiary, Permanent Representative of Italy to the UN), and Dr. Esther Gicheru (Director of the Institute for Co-operative Development Research and Extension, Co-operative University College of Kenya). The program also included a presentation about gender equality in cooperatives from COPAC representative Dr. Nadya Weber. The presentation reflected the high number of women co-operative members around the world drawn from the research done by COPAC.
To learn more about the event, please click here.