On the 24th October and shortly before the signature of the constitution act for the Cooperatives of the Americas Platform for Development (PCAD, for its acronym in Spanish) the first working meeting of the National Group of Visibility Officials (GONV) took place in the context of the V Cooperative Summit of the Americas in Buenos Aires,. This group is formed by the 9 American organisations co-applicants of the ICA-EU Partnership Agreement “Cooperatives in Development - People centred businesses in action” as well as additional representatives from Bolivia, Argentina, Mexico and Uruguay.
The aim of the group is to increase the visibility of the different activities launched under the umbrella of the ICA-EU Partnership and the cooperative movement in general. An additional purpose of the constitution of the group is to rise synergies among these communication actors to gain in terms of efficiency and media impact.
More concretely, some of the immediate foreseen initiatives consist of:
- boosting the cooperative marque and .coop,
- reactivating and reviewing the Cooperatives Communications Network for the Americas created in 2014,
- advancing in a common cooperative communication strategy in the region, and
- fostering the consideration of communication as a key management aspect by cooperatives.
As a starting exercise of collective action, the group developed together the media coverage of the V Cooperative Summit of the Americas. A team of 15 communication professionals coming from 8 different countries managed to achieve a plural and far-reaching media coverage. Through this first collective action not only the media resonance on the Summit gained visibility, but the group proved the huge potential of the network.
