Co-operative and mutual leaders met in Manchester last week to work on a commitment plan and manifesto that will be presented at the United Nations’ Second World Social Summit in Doha in November.
The meeting was the second in-person event of the Cooperative Leadership Circle (CM50), which brings together 50 co-op and mutual leaders from around the world. Set up by the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA), CM50 has big ambitions – to act as the Davos of the global co-operative movement.
One of the CM50 members is Shirine Khoury-Haq, CEO of the UK’s Co-op Group, which hosted the event. Khoury-Haq told the meeting it is important for the group to speak as a collective and provide a counter voice for some of the things happening in the world.
ICA’s director general, Jeroen Douglas, agreed, adding that 2025 is a tipping point year.
“A paradigm shift taking place under our own eyes every day, the geopolitical world is changing rapidly,” he warned, pointing to world crises including climate change, conflicts, migration, growing inequality and the erosion of democratic values.
But Douglas thinks co-operatives can help to address all these issues. And CM50’s role is to deliver this by working to meet the ICA’s goals of increasing co-operatives’ and mutuals’ share in the global economy.
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Leaders also heard from Andrew Allimadi, social affairs officer at the UN, who warned of a global trend of individualism, moving away from a common agenda, solidarity and global collectivity – a problem identified in the UN secretary general’s Common Agenda Report in 2021 .
“It seems the situation seems to be getting worse,” said Allimadi.
Now, with the Second World Social Summit, the UN aims to accelerate progress towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
“This International Year of Cooperatives is giving us another chance to show the values, principles and the work co-operatives are doing and bring this work to Doha and show the leaders the solutions they are looking for already exist within co-operatives,” said Allimadi. ”Co-operatives are practicing these solutions every day.”
But any increased emphasis on co-operatives in the final World Social Summit Declaration will be determined by interactions between co-operatives and their national governments, he added.
Allimadi also referred to the UK government’s commitment to double the size of the co-operative and mutual economy, which, he said, is a good example of the sort of co-op representation the World Social Summit’s facilitators are looking to include.
He said co-operative leaders should encourage their governments to include similar action-oriented recommendations.
CM50 leaders will also write a letter to UN colleagues, with concrete examples of the movement’s commitment to building a better world.
Related: Co-operators gather in Greater Manchester
While co-ops are mentioned in the UN Social Summit zero draft declaration, ICA policy director Joseph Njuguna said a stronger recognition is needed
He encouraged co-op leaders to continue engaging governments, suggest action-oriented recommendations to them and lobby for the integration of co-ops and mutuals in national plans.
Several CM50 leaders are already engaging with their governments to ensure co-operatives are mentioned in the final World Social Summit Declaration – including co-operative leaders from Canada, Kenya, India, UK, Spain, Bulgaria, Philippines, Chile and Australia.
At a previous meeting in Madrid, leaders decided to focus on three work streams: rebuilding post conflict, promoting co-operative education and governance; and building a co-operative marketplace.
“We have a lot of evidence of co-ops working to build peace and reconciliation after conflict,” said Khoury-Haq. “In Rwanda, co-ops were created and that allowed people who were victims of the genocide to work side by side with people who were perpetrators to be able to build peace together based on co-op principles.”
This, she added, can be achieved through advocacy trading with co-ops in post-conflict countries and the creation of enabling platforms to promote co-op education.
The second stream is creating a co-op marketplace for co-ops to trade with one another.
“This would require us to stop spending money with big companies,” said Central Co-op CEO, Debbie Robinson. “It is in our hands.”
A third stream centres on co-op education and governance, said Midcounties Co-op CEO, Phil Ponsoby. As part of this, co-operatives would engage governments on enabling frameworks and call for co-operatives to be included on schools curricula.
The meeting concluded with a presentation by Stephen Gill, CEO of Coop Exchange, a platform that facilitates investment in co-operatives.
“If we as a movement don’t design the financial tool to scale our model, no one else will,” he said. “So let’s go to Doha with something real and say we didn’t just call for change, we created the system to deliver it.”
The next CM50 gathering will take place in Doha during the World Social Summit from 3-6 November, where the group will launch its Manifesto and Commitment Plan. The ICA will also be releasing a special edition of the World Cooperative Monitor and organise an event to mark the end of the 2025 UN International Year of Cooperatives.
“Let’s make this a success,” said Douglas.
