Appendix 3 - ICA Resolution on Co-operative Development Policy
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This document has been made available in electronic format
by the International Co-operative Alliance ICA
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August, 1996
Source : An ICA Policy for Co-operative Development, Studies and
Reports, ICA, London, 1983, 28 pp. Hard copy available in French,
German, Spanish and Russian.
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An ICA policy for Co-operative Development
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Appendix 3
International Co-operative Alliance
Resolution on Co-operative Development Policy
The Central Committee of the International Co-operative
Alliance at its meeting in Rome in October, 1982:
Declares continued support for the Technical Assistance
policy statement made in Congress 1954 and
endorsed in 1970 when the Co-operative
Development Decade was introduced in support of
the United Nations Second Development Decade;
Having a world-wide experience of co-operative
methods, urges economic co-operation as a means
for the improvement of the living standards of
people everywhere, including the developing
countries;
Believes that co-operation can best be understood by
people working together for common good, in
self-help and mutual aid;
Convinced that in the conditions of developing countries
and on the evidence that, when organised to
cover real needs expressed by their members,
co-operatives offer the best alternative for
the improvement of the living standards of
people and the enhancement of human welfare and
dignity;
Asks those engaged in all forms of co-operative
service to understand and communicate the true
meaning of the nature of co-operation, as
stated by Dr. Laidlaw in `Co-operatives in the
Year 2000'.
`The overriding concept present in all co-
operatives is this: a group of people, small or
large, with a commitment to joint action on the
basis of democracy and self-help in order to
secure a service or economic arrangement that
is at once socially desirable and beneficial to
all taking part'.
Invites the co-operative organisations in the
developing countries to mobilise resources and
to co-ordinate efforts in a planned expansion
of the co-operative system at all levels -
local, regional and national - such expansion
to be undertaken in close collaboration with
and support from their respective governments;
Stresses the importance of education and training by and
for co-operative leaders to ensure a wide and
independent co-operative organisation equipped
to meet the economic and social needs of the
people, especially in the rural areas where
food production, processing and distribution
are so important. Agricultural, productive and
workers' co-operatives supported by savings and
credit institutions should have priority;
Emphasises that the economic problems in fast-growing
urban areas in the Third World make co-
operative solutions in retailing distribution,
housing, banking and insurance increasingly
important;
Calls upon governments of developing countries to
enact appropriate legislation designed to
create conditions conducive to independent co-
operative development and to reflect adequately
the importance of co-operation in their own
nations' economic development programme;
Calls upon the United Nations, the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP), and other aid
funding agencies to ensure that in respect of
the support for development through co-
operatives due emphasis is given to the need
for promotion of co-operatives which are
voluntary, autonomous and democratic;
Declares that co-operatives in the industrialised world
have a special duty to aid the newer co-
operative movements in the developing countries
and calls upon them to:
a) give organisational, technical and
financial support for ICA programmes;
b) develop their own bilateral programmes in
consultation with the ICA;
c) encourage their own government to increase
aid to co-operative development, with
special emphasis on education and training
programmes.
Endorses and commits this Central Committee and the
organisations represented therein to the policy
document of October 1982 entitled `An ICA
Policy for Co-operative Development'.
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