The International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) has announced 63 new inscriptions on its Cooperative Cultural Heritage List, recognising sites and living traditions from 39 countries. Tiago Schmidt, Chairperson of the ICA Working Group on Cooperative Cultural Heritage, made the announcement at the ICA Global Conference 2026 in Panama, held under the theme “Building Bridges: Cooperative Contributions for a Peaceful World”.
The additions bring the list to 95 inscriptions, following the inaugural 32 announced in Brasilia in November 2025
The 2026 inscriptions, available at culturalheritage.coop, illustrate the diversity of cooperative heritage. They include the culture of Jeju’s women divers in the Republic of Korea, Switzerland’s alpine pasture season and traditional irrigation practices, alongside cooperative enterprises and institutions of learning and remembrance. Their stories invite reflection on how collective organisation sustains access to resources, supports cultural livelihoods and enables knowledge to pass between generations.
The announcement was accompanied by a celebration of Panama’s Cooperativa de Servicios Múltiples Artesanías Sombrero Pinta’o del Norte de Penonomé, R.L., recognising its contribution to safeguarding the intangible cultural heritage associated with the Pinta’o hat through cooperative enterprise. Representatives of the cooperative were invited to receive the honour symbolically on behalf of all custodians and communities represented in the 2026 inscriptions. Their participation placed the people who sustain living heritage at the centre of the occasion.
The Pinta’o hat illustrates the close relationship between cultural continuity and livelihoods. Its production connects people who cultivate and prepare plant fibres with those who braid, weave and finish the hats. These skills depend on local knowledge and transmission between generations. Cooperative organisation offers artisans a way to pursue shared economic interests, access materials and markets, and sustain the community relationships on which their heritage depends. It also brings democratic participation into decisions about the future of that heritage and the livelihoods it supports.
Launched during the United Nations International Year of Cooperatives in 2025, the ICA Cooperative Cultural Heritage (CCH) programme identifies, documents and celebrates the places, institutions and living practices through which cooperation has taken root worldwide. Mentored by OCB Brazil, with the participation and support of organisations represented in the ICA Working Group on Cooperative Cultural Heritage, it connects the preservation of cooperative memory with education and cultural exchange.
The programme draws inspiration from UNESCO’s 2016 inscription of the “Idea and practice of organizing shared interests in cooperatives” on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, following Germany’s nomination. This recognition offers a foundation for understanding cooperation as a living cultural practice: knowledge, values and ways of organising shared interests that communities transmit across generations and adapt to changing circumstances.
The list also draws inspiration from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and its Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) programme. GIAHS recognises living agricultural systems in which traditional knowledge, biodiversity, landscapes and livelihoods have evolved together. This approach helps illuminate the cooperative contribution to heritage: collective organisation can sustain the relationships between cultural practice, productive activity and the stewardship of shared resources.
The map is also beginning to connect individual places through cooperative heritage trails. A trail associated with Toyohiko Kagawa links sites in Japan connected with his life and cooperative work. Morocco’s argan cooperative heritage brings together traditional knowledge, women’s livelihoods and stewardship of a distinctive landscape. A developing Raiffeisen trail traces places associated with Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen and the spread of his cooperative ideas.
Educational institutions that have provided cooperative education for more than fifty years offer another form of continuity. Their inclusion recognises the sustained work of teaching and renewing cooperative knowledge. Together, these institutions and trails can help reveal how ideas travelled across borders, took root in different communities and acquired new meanings through practice.
Nominations open for five further heritage sites and traditions
The ICA now invites nominations for five further exceptional sites or living traditions whose inscription would take the tally to 100. ICA members and their constituents are encouraged to identify heritage with a clear cooperative connection, cultural significance and evidence of continuity. Communities should have an active role in explaining its meaning and shaping how it is documented and safeguarded.
The call welcomes tangible and intangible heritage, including places, institutions, craftsmanship, knowledge and traditions sustained through cooperation. Nominations should explain the cooperative contribution and the involvement of heritage bearers, including how knowledge is transmitted to younger generations. Proposals will be considered against the programme’s relevant criteria. The nomination form and guidance are available through the website’s Criteria and Nominations page; assistance is available at help@culturalheritage.coop.
This initiative is part of the ICA-EU Partnership (2024-2028), also known as #coops4dev🌍, a five-year international cooperative development programme that aims to strengthen the ICA network and position cooperatives as key development actors within the European Union Development Agenda.
