The International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) wrapped up its global conference yesterday with the adoption of the New Delhi Action Agenda on the Future of Cooperatives.
The declaration reaffirms the co-op movement’s commitment to the Statement on the Cooperative Identity, and commits to supporting the 2030 United Nations Agenda for Sustainable Development, leveraging the co-operative movement’s partnership with the UN, and celebrating the UN General Assembly’s proclamation of 2025 as the International Year of Cooperatives.
“We recognise the pressing need to address global challenges, including inequality, climate change, economic instability, and the shrinking civic space,” it reads. “These challenges demand collective action toward peace, security, sustainability, and democracy, rooted in the co-operative model.”
The conference gathered more than 1,300 delegates from over 100 countries to develop an action agenda for the co-op movement as it speeds its efforts towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“The proclamation of the International Year of Cooperatives 2025 is a testament to co-operatives’ critical role in promoting social inclusion, reducing inequality, and driving sustainable development, reads the declaration. “This initiative, supported by the entire UN system, reaffirms a commitment to work closely with co-operatives of all types, everywhere, in the International Year and beyond, to accelerate progress towards building a peaceful society and prosperity for all through the power of co-operation.”
Introducing the agenda, ICA director general Jeroen Douglas said the declaration calls on co-ops, communities, civil society organisations, the private sector, governments, opinion shapers and multilateral institutions to take concrete actions for a just society and safer planet.
The New Delhi Action Agenda outlines a roadmap for achieving this future, focusing on four key pillars: reaffirming the cooperative identity, enabling supporting policies, developing strong leadership and building a sustainable future.
Douglas added that as the custodian of the Statement on the Cooperative Identity, the ICA pledges to be one movement with a united voice, and leverage the UN International Year of Cooperatives.
“We will use the 2025 International Year of Cooperatives to drive unified action, strengthen the movement, and monitor our progress,” he said. “We will hold ourselves accountable and share a progress report at the next global co-operative conference. We will show how, by keeping the values and principles at our heart, co-operatives build a better world for all, wherever you are on our planet. And together, through collaboration and a shared vision, we will build a world where more co-operatives create prosperity for all.”
The ICA will assess progress through regular assessments, culminating in a progress report at the 2026 global congress.
In his closing remarks, ICA president Dr Ariel Guarco talked about the opportunities brought by the 2025 International Year of Cooperatives, saying the conference had helped to “work towards progress together”.
“As I said at the beginning of this conference, it is an enormous opportunity to reaffirm our Identity and to raise our message that co-operatives build prosperity for all and that we build a better world,” he said.
“But it is also an opportunity to ask ourselves new questions and find together new answers to the multiple challenges that we face as co-operators and, if you want, that we face as humanity.
“The world is living through hours of uncertainty. We must be open to the demands that exist in our communities, understand the perspectives of the new generations, and we must know how to find the synergy to continue nurturing this movement of more than a billion people associated with three million co-operatives on all continents.
“For this, it is key that we have been able to exchange on topics as transcendental as they are diverse, and that we have put on the agenda the need to inter-co-operate within and outside our organisations.”
