Co-op News March 2023

Corporations can also provide training and
support to co-operatives to help them build
capacity and become more competitive in
the marketplace, she added. “Co-operatives
and corporations are both important players
in their economy and their collaboration can
have a profound impact on the development of
communities.”
The event also featured a panel discussion
with corporate and co-operative representatives.
Adinan Kielb, administrative director of
Cresol, the third largest credit co-op in Brazil,
gave an overview of its work. Cresol has 734
branches, represents 78,000 co-op members and
manages US$4.7bn in assets. It provides micro
credit for small farmers and small companies
and has a number of partnerships with insurance
companies and public and private banks.
Aldo Uva, CEO of CSM Ingredients, shared
some of his organisation’s
projects with co-ops,
including its Ancient
Grains initiative, which
is helping farmer coops
plant rare ancient
grains. This encourages
biodiversity and creates
opportunities for farmers
– and through co-ops,
farmers can work with corporations directly,
cutting middlemen from the supply chain.
“The more co-operatives are there, the more
frameworks that encourage co-ops, the more
corporations can add value to the full ecosystem,
and to the full value chain of food,” added Uva.
Bruno Roelants, director general of the
International Cooperative Alliance (ICA), who
was also representing Copac, which the ICA
currently chairs, said co-operatives contribute to
SDGs 8 and 10 by having a lower than average
income gap, redistributing profits according to
members’ transactions, and fostering knowledge
and innovation in their communities.
“Co-operatives naturally promote the SDGs
and they had been doing so even before the SDGs
came into being,” he said. “Co-ops tend to create
networks of enterprises among themselves and
with the rest of the corporate world, and we have
a lot to gain from stronger co-operation between
co-ops and the rest of the corporate world.”
The two types of enterprises could work
together more strongly on the SDGs on the
agenda 2030, added Roelants, and they can also
start “thinking beyond the 2030 agenda.”
Meanwhile, Angus Rennie, partnerships
manager at UN Global Compact, said it was
important to continue to “lift up co-operatives
“The more co-operatives are
there, the more frameworks
that encourage co-ops, the
more corporations can add
value to the full ecosystem, and
to the full value chain of food”
as leaders in really living those values of
partnership and resilience”.
The UN Global Compact intends to launch
a call on companies everywhere to commit to
a living wage. “I think this is something that
partners in the co-operative sector might also
already be able to demonstrate,” said Rennie.
Larger co-ops are also leading the way when
it comes to partnering with small and medium
enterprises (SMEs), he thinks. UN Global
Compact is to launch a pilot project encouraging
partnerships between some of the larger
multinationals and SMEs.
The event ended with a Q&A session, where
Matthieu Cognac, senior multilateral cooperation
specialist at the New York office of
the UN International Labour Organization (ILO),
said co-operatives are important because of
their role in decent work and supply chains, and
the way they “promote
democratic values at
the local level and at the
country level”.
In 2002 ,the ILO adopted
Recommendation 193
on the Promotion of
Cooperatives, which
has been used by 117
countries to revise their
co-operative policies.
Lucas Tavares, senior liaison officer at the
UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),
pointed out that rural areas are home to more
than 80% of the world’s extreme poor – many
of them family farmers who lack access to loans,
inputs or markets, “Co-operatives are a means to
grant them this access,” he said.
The FAO is working with the Latin American
Parliament (Parlatino), a regional, permanent
organisation representing the countries of Latin
America and the Caribbean, to create a draft
model law for the region’s agri food co-ops.
Access to land is another issue. Dr Ify Ofong
of Women in Development and Environment
(Nigeria), convenor of the Women and Habitat
Africa working group, which forms part of the
Habitat International Coalition, argued that cooperatives
could enable women’s access to land
in countries where this is an issue.
“With the right legal framework we do create
the conditions for co-operatives to grow, to
bridge co-ops and corporations, and achieve the
benefits we are looking for,” she said.
In her concluding remarks, Daniela Bas said
the meeting would be followed by specific
thematic workshops to further explore the issues
raised during the meeting.
MARCH 2023 | 45