The International Cooperative Alliance advocates the interests and success of cooperatives, providing a global voice and forum for knowledge, expertise and co-ordinated action.
Uniting the global cooperative movement
The ICA serves as a forum to boost cooperation between cooperatives:
Promoting the cooperative difference
Working on the cooperative minimum standards or common denominators has continuously remained part of the fundamental mission of the ICA since its creation. It is intrinsically linked to the legislation field, as national regulation having an impact on cooperatives should be first of all aimed at protecting the cooperative identity.
The ICA represents and promotes the cooperative specificity towards media and in multilateral organisations including the United Nations, ILO, FAO, IFAD, the International Accounting Standards Board and the B20 among others.
Developing an economic instrument
The ICA provides individuals and communities with an instrument of self-help and influence over local communities, regions, countries, continents and the whole world through wealth creation and redistribution, democracy, empowerment, and by producing an ever-increasing convergence between the economic, social and environmental components of development.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have the merit of providing us with the first-ever comprehensive conceptual framework on development with precise goals and indicators on which all the states have agreed upon, the SDGs can thus be considered to be a transversal strategic priority for the ICA.
A new worldwide strategic plan for the cooperative movement!
The Blueprint for a Cooperative Decade was approved in 2012 as a strategic document for the global cooperative movement in conjunction with the UN International Year of Cooperatives. In the years following its adoption, the ICA used the Blueprint as an opportunity to address member needs and build meaningful initiatives that deliver value back to the membership.
While the cooperative decade has come to a close, a new 10-year 2020-2030 strategic plan called A People Centered Path for a Second Cooperative Decade 2020-2030 was approved at the ICA General Assembly in Kigali in 2019, based on a multi-faceted consultation in which most ICA members participated.
