CECOP-CICOPA Europe: “Social needs, cooperative answers” – a new campaign for the promotion of cooperatives providing community services launched today
Cooperatives, as the most important expression of citizens’ needs and aspirations in the form of an enterprise, have appeared naturally to provide adequate solutions to satisfy community needs, such as health, education, housing, environment, social services and labour integration for disadvantaged citizens; all of them worldwide basic needs. Over the last few years, the cooperative movement, through member-based and democratically controlled businesses, has been meeting the challenge of satisfying those needs in a more intensive manner, while at the same time contributing to economic development, sustainable employment and social cohesion in communities. Moreover, they provide higher quality and better cost-efficiency compared to other delivery patterns, according to a number of studies.
To make this reality known, CICOPA, the International Organisation of Industrial and Service Cooperatives, and IHCO, the International Health Cooperative Organisation, have launched the campaign “Social needs, cooperative answers”, following a workshop organised in South Africa in the framework of the International Cooperative Alliance conference in 2013. Up until 2020, answering the call of the cooperative movement compiled in the Blueprint for a Cooperative Decade, cooperatives providing community services will have the platform www.socialneedscooperativeanswers.coop to say out loud how and why they contribute to more dignified and secure lives for millions of people worldwide. Some videos presenting concrete examples from Argentina, Spain, Brazil, the United States, Italy or Uganda about how cooperatives provide community services across the world, are already available on the website.
