UNITED NATIONS LOOKS FORWARD TO CONTINUING CONTRIBUTION OF COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT, SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS IN MESSAGE MARKING INTERNATIONAL DAY
Press Release
SG/SM/6011
ENV/DEV/371
UNITED NATIONS LOOKS FORWARD TO CONTINUING CONTRIBUTION OF COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT, SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS IN MESSAGE MARKING INTERNATIONAL DAY
19960628 Following is the text of Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali's message to the second United Nations International Day of Cooperatives, commemorated on 6 July:The world's governments, meeting at Copenhagen, Beijing and Istanbul in the past year to confront some of the gravest issues facing human society, have unanimously recognized the importance of the contribution which cooperatively organized business enterprises make in almost all areas of human endeavour and in communities throughout the world. Moreover, they acknowledged that the values and principles of the international cooperative movement, proclaimed with renewed clarity in the Statement of Cooperative Identity adopted at the recent Centennial Congress of the International Co- operative Alliance, are precisely those that the world community considers, with increasing conviction, to be prerequisites for solving the problems of unemployment, poverty, social disintegration and environmental degradation.
In an increasingly globalized economy neither individual citizens, nor entire communities, nor even governments of sovereign States are fully in control of processes affecting them but whose beneficial impact is by no means certain. In this environment, 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 for purposes 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 -- the central requirements of a sustainable human society.
This is the same ethical stance that guided the representatives of the world's peoples at the founding of the United Nations. Our goals and our actions to achieve them are similar.
Each of the documents agreed upon at Copenhagen, Beijing and Istanbul calls upon the cooperative movement to participate formally in monitoring progress, evaluating results and reviewing strategies. At the United Nations we look forward to this continuing contribution of your movement to our common endeavour, recognizing that your representatives convey the democratically expressed views of the hundreds of millions of women and men who, through their participation in the cooperative movement, have taken upon themselves the responsibilities of citizens of the world.
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