The Committee for the Promotion and Advancement of Cooperatives (COPAC) held a high-level event last Tuesday in collaboration with the United Nations Federal Credit Union and the New York City Department of Small Business Services to mark the International Day of Cooperatives 2025.
Held at the UN headquarters in New York, the event gathered co-op leaders to highlight the sector’s role in tackling multiple global crises and working towards the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
It was moderated by Konstantinos Papadakis, principal social affairs officer at the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN Desa), who framed the meeting as “part of a broader effort within the UN system, including in the lead up to the second World Summit for Social Development, that will take place in Doha next November, to recognise the co-operative model, not as a niche, but as a proven, people centred approach to sustainable development”.
Papadakis added that it was encouraging to see growing support within the General Assembly of the United Nations, and that the latest UN resolution on co-operatives had over 100 co-sponsors, making it one of the most widely supported resolutions at the UN.
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“And the momentum about the International Year of Co-operatives reflects that appetite for partnership, for participation, for solutions leading to peace and solidarity”, he said.
The first speaker, Charles Katoanga, director of the division for inclusive social development at Desa, highlighted a “mix of complex and deeply interconnected challenges” the world is currently facing, including inequality, eroding social cohesion, a disillusioned youth and declining trust in institutions.
“Thirty years ago, at the World Summit of Social Development in Copenhagen, the world leaders pledged to place people at the centre of development and call for a global commitment to eradicate poverty, achieve full employment, and foster social integration,” he said. “It was a bold vision for a just and inclusive world. Yet the richest 1% now owns more wealth than 95% of humanity. The urgency to act has never been greater.”
As democratically governed, people-centred organisations, he added, co-ops embody the principles in the Copenhagen Declaration, and quoted UN secretary-general António Guterres when he said co-ops “demonstrate the importance of standing together to forge solutions to global challenges”.
“This is not just rhetoric,” said Katoanga. “From rural villages to urban centres, co-operatives are proving that economic success and social solidarity can go hand in hand”.
Next, permanent representative of Mongolia to the UN, Ankhbayar Nyamdorj, provided an overview of co-operative finance in Mongolia and Asia Pacific, describing the region’s co-op movement as a “very dynamic, evolving force with strong presence in various sectors and growing potential to contribute to the region’s social and economic development.”
Yabesh O. Monari, the permanent representative of Kenya to the UN, described how his country’s co-op movement is an expression of a core Kenyan principle of Harambee, meaning ‘pull together’.
Dynishal Gross, commissioner at the New York City Department of Small Business Services, explained that for the past 11 years, the city government has upheld worker co-ops as an essential strategy to reduce inequality, and has provided support to worker co-ops through the Worker Co-operative Business Development Initiative over this time.
“Historically, there have been few government supported avenues to make this type of economic progress,” he said. “In its current iteration, the city of New York’s Worker Cooperative, Business Development Initiative strengthens and empowers the existing ecosystem of co-operative development, with tools, best practices, and resources for continued success.”
A panel discussion on how credit unions can advance the SDGs featured contributions from Alison Coates, director of climate strategy and performance at Vancity credit union in Canada, David McAuley, CEO of Donore Credit Union in Ireland, and Thomas Belekevich, Costa Rica-based director of member services at the World Council of Credit Unions USA.
Belekevich spoke about how losing half of its development team since the start of 2025 due to the US government’s cuts to international development funding, has meant that “we’ve had to adjust, and we’re refocusing our energy on what we see as our greatest strength – this global co-operative network of more than 100 member organisations, 80 countries, where real innovation and peer support happens”.
“This co-operation is how we build resilience, stay rooted in our community needs and how we respond to the global uncertainty with a share of approach to solutions,” he added.
The event’s second session focused on lessons from New York City’s Worker Cooperative Business Development Initiative (WCBDI), featuring contributions from Coby Kalter, executive director of business programmes at the New York City Department of Small Business Services, Anh-Thư Nguyễn, director of strategic partnerships at the Democracy at Work Institute, and Ricardo Lopez, corporate compliance officer at Cooperative Home Care Associates.
The WCBDI IS is the largest municipally supported initiative in the US that is helping to develop worker owned businesses, through work such as the Owners to Owners programme, a hotline launched during the COVID crisis that enabled business owners in New York City to learn about worker ownership as a succession planning strategy.
Nguyễn described the work of WCBDI as “legacy preservation and economic opportunity”, in a city where 44% of the workforce is made up of foreign born workers, 40% of American business owners are baby boomers, looking to retire in the coming years.
“This presents an enormous wealth transfer that’s happening and also incredible opportunities for creating wealth building for new communities”, she said.
“By investing in worker ownership, New York City is creating an example of what it might look like to try to create a more equitable economy, in perhaps the most inequitable city in the world, and how to create a tide that lifts up all boats.”
Joao Martins, from the National Union of Family Farming and Solidarity Economy Cooperatives (Unicafes) in Brazil, shared insights on how family farms are contributing to the SDGs in the run up to the COP30 taking place in Brazil later this year.
“We believe co-operatives must be at the heart of [the UN] Pact for the Future, and central to the deliberations of the Second World Summit for Social Development, not as passive recipients of aid, but as co-creators of development models rooted in solidarity, equity and collective wellbeing,” he said.
