New speakers have been added to the agenda of the 2026 ICA Global Conference – Building Bridges: Cooperative Contributions for a Peaceful World – with just a month to go until the event, in Panama,
The International Cooperative Alliance has announced that Bjørg Sandkjær, assistant secretary-general for policy coordination at the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (Undesa), will be a keynote speaker, bringing with her nearly 30 years of experience in policymaking and international development.
Also attending the event from the UN is Silke Staab, regional policy advisor on women’s economic empowerment at the UN Women Regional Office for the Americas and the Caribbean, who will share her expertise on gender equality, social protection, care policies, and inclusive economic development.
Akram Al-Taher, director general at the Economic and Social Development Center of Palestine (ESDC), will speak about his 25 years of experience working in co-operative development and livelihood improvement in the Palestinian community, while Jayati Ghosh, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, brings her experience in economic development, globalisation, labour, inequality, gender and macroeconomic policy.
Related: Co-operators prepare for the ICA Global Conference in Panama
Aline Nyirabaruta (Codervam, Rwanda), Francois Dionne (International Programme Director at Socodevi, Canada) and Simone Gamberini (Alleanza Italiana delle Cooperative) will contribute stories from their different organisations.
Elsewhere, ThereseFaye Diouf (Pan African Parliament, Committee on Monetary and Financial Affairs, Senegal) and Shobha Shetty (World Bank, senior adviser, Agriculture at the World Bank Group and Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) head, India) will bring their experience of co-operatives working in different financial sectors.
Representing the ICA across different sessions will be Xiomara Núñez de Céspedes (recently re-elected president of the ICA Gender Equality Committee and member of the ICA global board; and member of the board of directors of COOPROENF (Dominican Republic)) and Helena Gorroño (vice president for Europe of the ICA Youth Committee; project development coordinator at Tazebaez (Spain).
More names will be announced soon. Find out more about these speakers and more at https://icapanama2026.coop/speakers/ – and register for the conference here.
