Cooperatives: "Meeting Human Need, Not Just Human Greed"

José Domingo Guariglia interviews PAULINE GREEN, president of the International Cooperative Alliance, on the International Year of Cooperatives

Photo Credit: Rousbeh Legatis/IPS

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 3, 2011 (IPS) - Different countries may celebrate Oct. 31 in a variety of ways, but this year, the 193 member states of the United Nations (U.N.) launched the International Year of Cooperatives 2012 to raise awareness about the impact of cooperatives on the development of communities where they operate.

"Cooperative enterprises build a better world" is the theme for the first International Year of Cooperatives (IYC). The cooperative sector has 800 million members in more than 100 countries throughout the world.

Global discussions about the impact of cooperatives will take place at a local level among the U.N.'s 193 member states, members of media, sponsors and international organisations.

One of those organisations is the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA), founded in 1895 as an independent non-governmental group that unites and represents cooperatives around the world. Its members are 260 cooperatives operating in 96 countries.

ICA focuses on the promotion and protection of the cooperative identity in order to guarantee that cooperatives will be able to compete in the market as legitimate forms of enterprise. At the same time, it pushes for changes in legislation and policy to foster cooperatives' growth.

ICA President Pauline Green has worked with the cooperative movement for the past 35 years. She was chief executive and general secretary of Co-operatives UK from 2000 to October 2009 and co-president of Cooperatives Europe and ICA vice-president for Europe until she was elected ICA president in November 2009.

IPS correspondent José Domingo Guariglia interviewed Green about her expectations for the IYC and on the importance of cooperatives.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: The 2012 International Year theme is "Cooperative enterprises build a better world". Do you agree with that statement?

A: Cooperatives teach good democratic practices, help to build solidarity and cohesion in local communities, develop leadership potential among local people and support training and education.

Cooperatives are about meeting human needs, not just human greed, and they do this by creating member-owned businesses that allow local people to support the development of their own community. By returning profits from the business to their members, they keep the wealth within local communities and allow it to grow further.

It is about allowing people to pull themselves out of poverty through their own endeavours and with dignity. In this way cooperatives have diminish conflict, created more cohesive societies, enhanced skills and supported the evolution of well-informed, empowered citizens.

That is how cooperatives build a better world.

Q: Who is financing the IYC?

A: So far the ICA is funding its activities for the IYC directly from its own resources and from its member contributions, and we have an appeal out for that purpose. Occasionally we ask for sponsorship for specific events or publications.

The more we can raise, the more we can do to lift the visibility and profile of our model of business across the world, lobby governments and global bodies to improve cooperative access to the market, and show to the world that we have a model of business that is not business as usual.

Q: Why did the ICA get involved in the organisation of the IYC?

A: The ICA has been working for this outcome for a considerable time – probably five years in a serious way. Much is owed to the government of Mongolia who finally took the resolution to the floor of the General Assembly of the U.N. seeking a mandate for the IYC.

In the final analysis, the resolution at the U.N. was supported by nearly double the number of governments than usually sign the resolutions on an International Year – so it was very gratifying and a clear sign that in many countries, governments regard the cooperative input to their national economy to be important in their nations.

Q: Do cooperatives have a role in the achievement of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals?

A: Cooperatives are active in a whole range of sectors of the economy, from agriculture to insurance, from retailing to health, from banking to renewable energy, from housing to education.

From a commercial perspective, they support the lives and livelihoods of both their members and their employed staff who, incidentally, are often members as well.

Cooperatives can help in achieving the U.N. Millennium Development Goals. In fact, I would argue that over our 170-year history we have done more than any other single organisation to take people out of poverty.

Q: What else should the U.N. do to promote the work of the cooperative sector?

A: The different organs of the U.N. have supported the growth of various sectors of the cooperative economy – in agriculture, credit unions and microfinance, for instance. And the ILO (International Labour Organisation) has, of course, worked hard over the years to support good cooperative legislation across the world that subscribes to the worldwide values and principles of the movement.

As to what more the U.N. could do, we are about to launch the U.N.'s latest great gift to cooperatives worldwide and that is the International Year of Cooperatives.

It might look extremely ungracious to be asking for more. However, at a moment when so many people are suffering as a direct result of the collapse of the investor-led financial sector of the economy, and the resultant recession, it is vital that the cooperative movement is reinforced and strengthened to do its job for those people whose lives could and should be better.

That is something for which cooperators around the world will work very hard.

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"Governments Must Listen to the People, Not the Polluters"

José Domingo Guariglia interviews DANIEL MITTLER, Political Director of Greenpeace International


Photo :Martin Horak

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 8, 2011 (IPS) - The historic 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro marked one of the world's seminal international conferences on the environment, creating or reinforcing a slew of U.N. treaties and protocols on climate change, biodiversity, desertification and forests.

Still, nearly 20 years later, as the United Nations prepares for a follow-up Rio Plus 20 conference in Brazil next June, the Earth Summit's successes and failures are coming under increased scrutiny.

In an interview with IPS, the political director of Greenpeace International, Daniel Mittler, said that since the Rio summit, governments have clearly failed to make any advances on sustainable development governance.

"They have created powerful new laws to protect the interests of business, such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO), but they have failed to provide the poor and the environment with the kind of institutional support they need," he said.

"The green economy is starting to happen. However, we know that the transition is not fast enough," Mittler added.

The upcoming Rio Plus 20 conference in Brazil is expected to promote actions to guarantee that economic activities will not further harm the environment and a new institutional framework that will allow sustainability in a long term.

In the run-up to the conference, representatives of civil society will meet in Bonn Sep. 3-5 at a U.N. Conference for Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), that will discuss the topic "Sustainable Societies; Responsive Citizens".

"NGOs need to hold governments and business to account, and they need to provide ideas for solutions, and also organise public support for delivering concrete steps forward for people and the environment," Mittler said.

Greenpeace will participate in this NGO conference to make sure that "governments and businesses are ready to respond to the needs of the poor and the planet rather than dirty industries and their lobbyists," Mittler said.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: The Rio Conference was held in 1992. Ten years later there was another conference in Johannesburg. Why is it important to have a new conference on sustainable development?

A: Conferences themselves are never important. Results are. Big conferences have often failed in recent years. Rio Plus 10 (Johannesburg), for example, adopted what we termed a "Plan of Inaction". That said, global conferences are key hooks for global debates and opportunities to highlight current failures and current and future opportunities. Development since Rio has been everything but sustainable.

If returning to Rio is to make any sense, governments will have to get serious about implementing the many promises of Rio they have broken, business will have to seize the opportunity fair and clean development provides, and dirty lobbyists will have to be exposed for holding us back.

For Greenpeace, Rio Plus 20 will only be important if it delivers real advances for people and the planet.

Q: You have worked with Greenpeace International and Friends of the Earth. What has been the contribution of the NGOs to environmental meetings?

A: NGOs need to hold governments and business to account, need to provide ideas for solutions, and need to organise public support for delivering concrete steps forward for people and the environment.

The discussions about Rio Plus 20 are in many ways only just the beginning. NGOs must engage with them with honesty and stand up against those trying to "greenwash" business as usual and call it "green economy".

NGOs must also resist just doing the kind of campaigns they did 10 and 20 years ago, simply because we have done it before. We must analyse the current situation and choose targeted inputs in those areas that are most likely to see real change.

Q: What are Greenpeace International's suggestions for the Rio Plus 20?

A: We have many. Rio Plus 20 must support an energy revolution based on renewable energy and energy efficiency and providing access to energy for all.

Governments and businesses must commit to zero deforestation by 2020. Developed countries and corporations must end policies and funding that drive deforestation.

Rio Plus 20 must make the transition to a green economy fair and equitable and commit to a decent jobs agenda. It must strengthen the governance system that delivers an "environment for development" by upgrading the U.N. Environment Programme to specialised agency status.

Greenpeace calls for a new implementing agreement under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) for the conservation of marine biodiversity and sustainable management of human activities in areas beyond national jurisdiction.

Q: Will Greenpeace be at the conference "Sustainable Societies – Responsive Citizens" that will take place in Bonn?

A: We will be participating and I am looking forward to speaking on one of the panels. Our action plan is what I have just outlined. These action points are the key test cases, whether Rio Plus 20 will move us towards sustainable societies - and whether governments and businesses are ready to respond to the needs of the poor and the planet rather than dirty industries and their lobbyists.

Q. What comes after the Rio Plus 20 Conference?

A: The next big test for the global community will be 2015, when governments will likely have missed many of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in many countries.

A global commitment to an economy based on renewables and efficiency, to zero deforestation and the adoption of a legal instrument to protect the high seas - all that could be next, if governments listen to the people rather than polluting corporations.

Clean industries must help us ensure governments stop standing in their way and get serious about the transition to a fair and clean global economy. What's next also depends on all of us. I invite all to go to www.greenpeace.org to join us to hold governments and businesses to account - and to deliver real solutions with all who are willing to do so.

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