Young cooperators are present, participating and leading, delegates at the ICA Youth Assembly heard. The event, held in Panama during the ICA Global Cooperative Conference week, included updates from regional youth committees and saw the elections of the Youth Committee President and At Large members for the four regions.
Harsh Sanghani was elected unopposed as President, with Salma Hachimi (Africa), Samuel Mancilla (Americas), Rami al Kasassbeh Salameh (Asia-Pacific) and Ramil Nasybullin (Europe) also joining the committee.
Representing the Africa Cooperative Youth Network, Mabruck Ismail Mpangule highlighted four activities, including Youth Town Hall Meetings, designed to align regional priorities with the global agendas; Participation in a cooperative conference in Kazan, Russia, where participants contributed to discussions about the global and Russian African Youth Cooperative Movements; the African Cooperative Entrepreneur Youth Ambassador Program, a pioneering continuity initiative designed to combat youth unemployment by training people aged between 18 to 35 to build, launch, and form and register worker cooperatives in their local communities; and a school cooperatives concept development initiative.
“As we gather here in Panama City under the global banner of Building Bridges: Cooperative Contributions for a Peaceful World, we stand at a critical juncture for youth in the global movement,” said Mpangule.
“Panama itself is defined by the Bridge of the Americas, a landmark that connects its continents. That is precisely what our generation is called to do: bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and the practical execution, between local grassroots initiatives and global cooperative networks.”
Sharing updates from the Cooperatives of the Americas Youth Committee, Nicolas Jacquet, described how the group includes 24 cooperatives from 11 countries.
“For the last four years, we've been working a lot on building those bridges that exist between our countries – we share a lot of information between us, and we hold webinars and workshops online, but also in person,” he said.
Digital activity has been a vital part of its work, including social media development and a map of youth participation.
“We’re proud about how many countries are represented on the map, but we have a lot of work to do because we don't have any countries that are from North America or that speak English or French, and that's really a barrier that we want to cross.”
He encouraged more young people to get involved in their local youth committees. “These meetings are a great opportunity to share together our knowledge, to share together the things that we've learned, but also to share together the burden of being young and being a cooperator.”
Dulce Bustamante Delmo, chair of the ICA Asia Pacific Youth Committee, shared an important milestone for the youth community in the region: “Youth people are now part of the decision-making table, because just during the 2025 regional assembly of the ICA Asia Pacific, members unanimously voted to give us full voting rights.” This means the Chair of the ICA-AP Youth Committee sits on the regional board with full voting rights, not just as an observer.
The committee has 33 members from 10 countries, Delmo, said, highlighting several activities including participation in the Law Symposium and Coop Identity Meeting at the Manchester Festival of Cooperation in July 2025, the launch of the Go Green Campaign, participation in We The Youth with UNRISD and being part of the co-drafting session of the Youth Declaration of Coops in Agrifood, among others.
“Most of our topics are about the future or the next generation, because in Asia Pacific we are advocating for intergenerational sustainability of cooperatives,” Delmo added. “Youth should not be a separate conversation within the cooperative movement. Youth should be part of every conversation.”
Helena Gorroño, representing the Young European Cooperators Network, highlighted that “2026 has been a huge year for us”.
Set up a decade ago, the YECN now has 50 members from 15 countries. “We have had a very engaged community. But it was not a renewing community, and that has proved a big challenge – because if all of them were the same age. Guess what happened? Eventually, they all were above the age limit, so suddenly we had no community anymore.”
In this transition year, the YECN established working groups, consolidated community calls, and held its general assembly in Porto and a gathering in Budapest. In the days before Panama, Coops Europe also voted to accept the YECN as an official committee, with all the functions and rights laid out in terms of reference.
Closing the meeting, Harsh Sanghani thanked delegated for attending and for “being part as in an inclusive youth committee – or I would rather say a youth family. This family that we have created is something special that I am privileged to take it forward”.
