COOPERATIVE LEADERS WILL MEET AT UNITED NATIONS TO MARK SECOND INTERNATIONAL DAY OF COOPERATIVES

27 June 1996

Press Release
ENV/DEV/370

COOPERATIVE LEADERS WILL MEET AT UNITED NATIONS TO MARK SECOND INTERNATIONAL DAY OF COOPERATIVES

19960627 NEW YORK, 27 June (DPCSD) -- Cooperative leaders will meet at United Nations Headquarters on 1 July in advance of the International Day of Cooperatives. The event will include a panel discussion on the contribution of the international cooperative movement to the goals set at recent United Nations development conferences held in Copenhagen, Beijing and Istanbul. The panel will also focus on the cooperative sector's contribution to the goals of the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty (1996), the Decade designated for the same purpose, and the forthcoming World Food Summit, to be held in Rome from 13 to 17 November.

Chaired by the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development, Nitin Desai, the panel will include representatives from the International Co-operative Alliance; the World Council of Credit Unions; the International Cooperative and Mutual Insurance Federation; the International Federation of Agricultural Producers; the Egyptian Central Agricultural Cooperative Union; the International Institute, Histadrut, Israel; and the United States Overseas Cooperative Development Council. In his message marking the Day, United Nations Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali underlines the potential of the cooperative movement and its people-centred enterprises in the increasingly globalized economy: "The cooperative movement and the cooperative sector offer a means, vital to many millions of citizens, whereby goods and services may be efficiently produced and consumed". This can be done, he says, "for purposes that are consistent with the ethical premises of civilization and by processes that remain within the democratic control of individual citizens". Those purposes are "socially and environmentally responsible and respect human dignity and the stability of communities", he adds.

The theme of the Day -- "the contribution of cooperatives to the eradication of poverty: empowerment for people-centred sustainable development" -- builds on the social and economic development goals set at recent major United Nations conferences. The Copenhagen Declaration, adopted by the 1995 World Summit for Social Development Declaration, commits States "to utilize and develop fully the potential and contribution of cooperatives for the attainment of social development goals, in particular, the eradication of poverty, the generation of full and productive employment, and the enhancement of social integration".

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The Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995) emphasized the ability of cooperatives to strengthen the economic capacity of women and to facilitate their access to resources, including credit and employment. The deliberations at the second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II), held in Istanbul earlier this month, emphasized the comparative advantage of partnerships with the cooperative sector as an essential component in developing housing and settlements.

The General Assembly proclaimed the International Day of Cooperatives in resolution 49/155 of 23 December 1994 and invited members of the international community to observe annually the International Day of Cooperatives on the first Saturday of July starting from 1995. The first commemoration held in 1995 marked the centenary of the establishment of the International Cooperative Alliance. The Alliance is an umbrella group of organizations comprising 760 million members of cooperatives in 100 countries, thus, making it the largest non-governmental organization having worked in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council since 1945.

The international cooperative movement represents a significant and substantive share of world-wide economic, social and financial activity. For example:

-- Cooperative enterprises worldwide count more than 760 million women and men as member-owners;

-- About 3 billion persons worldwide belong to households of cooperative members benefiting from the income and access to goods and services;

-- Twenty per cent of the population aged fifteen to sixty years in developing countries, 33 per cent in developed countries and 39 per cent in countries with economies in transition, are members of cooperative enterprises;

-- Some 330,000 cooperatives worldwide are owned by agricultural producers and function as group purchasing, common service and marketing enterprises in 47 countries, with over 180 million members, which generate a turnover equivalent to over $455 billion;

-- The portion of individual agricultural commodities marketed through cooperatives account, for example, for 71 per cent of Canadian grains and oilseeds; 90 per cent of Uruguayan dairy products; 49 per cent of Turkish cotton; 64 per cent of Brazilian wheat; 97 per cent of Danish pigs; 95 per cent of Swedish dairy products; 100 per cent of Panamanian potatoes; 78 per cent of Nicaraguan maize; and 95 per cent of Japanese rice;

-- In the United States, rural electricity cooperatives serve 25 million persons. Farmland, a Fortune 500 corporation and the largest United States agricultural cooperative, has a revenue of $6.7 billion;

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-- About 33,000 savings and credit cooperatives worldwide ("credit unions") count around 88 million members with savings equivalent to $377 billion, loans of $250 billion, reserves of $13.8 billion assets of $418.4 billion;

-- Housing cooperatives count 3 million persons in the United States, 600,000 families in Sweden, and more than 1 million families in Spain; and

-- Health cooperatives owned by their 39 million users operate in 14 countries.

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NOTE:More information may be obtained from the United Nations Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development, Division for Social Policy and Development, Focal Point for the Promotion of Cooperatives, tel. (212) 963-2924; fax (212) 963-3062; e-mail: stubbs@un.org