The official website for the ICA-EU Partnership on international co-operative development is now available in French and Spanish. Known as #coops4dev, the partnership was formed in 2016 to promote the potential of co-operative enterprises in development.
The website provides an overview of the partnership and its activities since its launch in March 2016.
Apart from the EU, the partnership works with a consolidated network of ICA members and sectors, civil society organisations and international institutions.
Run by all ICA offices, the #Coops4dev activities focus on increasing visibility, enhancing advocacy, sharing capacity building, strengthening co-operative development, networking, while supporting all these with research evidence.
Examples range from strengthening international co-operative development networks through the Cooperatives Europe Development Platform (CEDP) and the International Cooperatives Development Platform (ICDP) – to providing training to members, producing documentary films in collaboration with Aroundtheworld.coop, conducting research, and promoting co-operative entrepreneurship among the youth, via the Global Cooperative Entrepreneurs programme (GCE) and the Global Youth Forum on Cooperative Entrepreneurship 2020 (GYF20).
The website also features a user-friendly interactive map, which presents the results of two long-term research projects that are currently being conducted under the partnership.
The mapping provides information on the number of co-operatives, members and employees at national levels, as well as the main sectors in which co-operatives are active. It also includes information on the historic context of the co-operative movement and major co-operative organisations. To date, the #coops4dev research team has produced national mapping reports on 29 countries across the four ICA regional offices.
Through the partnership, a legal framework analysis was also carried out. The framework provides a detailed overview of the main laws impacting co-operatives in different countries, which includes an analysis of how these laws can be improved. The work is being carried our with the support of legal experts and ICA member organisations. The online platform features reports on 55 countries.
More information on these projects is available on the website.
