International Day of Cooperatives - 'Cooperatives Build A Better Future For All'

The International Day of Cooperatives is celebrated on the first Saturday of July. The International Day of Cooperatives is an annual celebration of the cooperative movement, which has been happening since 1923 by the International Cooperative Alliance.

Hyderabad: The International Day of Cooperatives is celebrated on the first Saturday of July each year. It was first celebrated under the auspices of the United Nations in 2005.

However, its origins date back to 1923 when it was first observed by the international cooperative movement and the International Co-operative Alliance. Each year the theme of the International Day of Cooperatives is determined by the Committee on the Promotion and Advancement of Cooperatives (COPAC), of which the ILO is a member.
Background of International Day of Cooperatives

The International Day of Cooperatives is an annual celebration of the cooperative movement, which has been happening since 1923 by the International Cooperative Alliance. Since 1995, together with the United Nations. Co-operatives work for the sustainable development of their communities through policies approved by their members. Co-operatives are based on the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity. In Co-operatives, men and women serve as elected representatives, who are accountable to the membership. Capital is usually the common property of the cooperative.

Members of Co-operatives use their services and are willing to accept the responsibilities of membership, without gender, social, racial, political or religious discrimination. Co-operatives are associations of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs.

History of the cooperative movement:In 1844 the Rochdale Pioneers founded the modern Cooperative Movement in Lancashire, England, to provide an affordable alternative to poor-quality and adulterated food and provisions, using any surplus to benefit the community. Since then, the cooperative movement has flourished, extending across the globe and encompassing all sectors of the economy.

2024 Theme:The theme for the 2024 International Day of Cooperatives is 'Cooperatives Build a Better Future for All'

2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

Cooperatives are ideal mechanisms for building gender equality:The cooperative model is well-suited to advancing women’s economic participation in three key ways: increasing access to employment and work, enabling economic democracy and agency and boosting leadership and management experience.

Cooperatives are spaces where women can create their own work opportunities and overcome economic exclusion. For example, women who earn their living in the informal economy, such as home-based workers, domestic workers and waste pickers, often choose to come together through the cooperative model to improve their livelihoods, enhance their access to goods, markets and services (like insurance) and engage in advocacy efforts through their collective voice. In this way, cooperatives have provided a number of pathways for women in the informal economy to transition to the formal economy by stabilising their incomes and improving their working conditions.

Role of Cooperatives in Poverty Reduction:Cooperatives are uniquely placed to eradicate poverty and dignify people’s lives, as human-centred businesses that exist to meet the needs of their members. In their contribution towards the eradication of poverty, cooperatives create employment opportunities by offering direct wage employment to people, self-employment to members and indirect employment through spillover of their income-generating activities

Co-operative Movement in India

In India cooperation has its origin in the last quarter of the 19th century in attempts to provide relief to the farmers from the clutches of money lenders. The cooperative movement was introduced in India as a state policy and owes its inauguration to the enactment of the Cooperative Societies Act, 1904. In the pre-independence era, the movement has passed through various stages of development and has seen ups and downs.

The dawn of Independence in 1947 and the advent of planned economic development ushered in a new era for cooperatives. Cooperation came to be considered as an instrument of planned economic development.

Former Prime Minister Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru was a great admirer of cooperatives and he conceived to convulse the country with cooperation. In five-year plans, the agricultural sector was given the highest priority and as a result, cooperatives registered big expansion in different sectors.

There are around 8,02,639 cooperative societies in 29 different sectors in the country out of which numbers of cooperative societies in the states of Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand are 81307, 17659, and 11448, respectively. Ministry of Cooperation, since its inception on 6th July 2021, has undertaken 54 initiatives to realise the vision of 'Sahakar-se-Samriddhi' and to strengthen and deepen the cooperative movement from primary to apex-level cooperatives in the country.

At present, the Indian Cooperative system is one of the biggest in the whole world. It is one of the strongest pillars on which agriculture and allied sectors are flourishing.

Cooperatives play a major role in India’s economy. With 98 per cent coverage in rural India, cooperatives are the mainstay of the rural economy ensuring sustainable livelihoods and income for people. Present in diverse sectors including agriculture, dairy, forestry, fisheries, credit and banking, housing and construction, cooperatives in India serve vast sections of society including farmers, women, youth, poor and the marginalised.

The Indian cooperative movement is committed to addressing developmental issues and empowering the common man and woman in both the formal and informal economy.