Cooperatives: a "Compelling Model of Economic Enterprise"

José Domingo Guariglia interviews FELICE LLAMAS, focal point on cooperatives for the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs

Members of the Bhorle Community Seed Bank, a cooperative in Nepal.

Photo Credit: Sudeshna Sarkar/IPS

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 29, 2011 (IPS) - With 800 million members in over 100 countries, the cooperative sector is a globally important group of collective organisations. On Oct. 31, the United Nations (U.N.) will begin a year of recognising their importance by launching the International Year of Cooperatives (IYC) in New York.

A cooperative, according to the U.N., is "an autonomous voluntary association of people who unite to meet common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations, through a jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise".

Cooperatives can play a significant role in helping to achieve the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, experts say.

"International Year of Cooperatives 2012: Cooperative enterprises build a better world", planned by the U.N. and the Committee for the Promotion and Advancement of Cooperatives (COPAC), aims to raise global awareness about the work of cooperatives, strengthen their influence in society and promote discussion about the topic among the organisation's 193 member states.

The themed year also includes conferences, seminars, workshops, publications and film screenings, financed by participating organisations.

Member states' participation is essential, as one of the year's goals is to encourage governments to establish policies and laws that will boost the formation and growth of cooperatives. Some member states have set up national committees that coordinate events at a local level and also bring together parties involved at other levels, including cooperatives, media, development agencies and NGOs.

IPS Correspondent José Domingo Guariglia interviewed Felice Llamas, focal point on cooperatives for the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, about the role of cooperatives in socioeconomic development.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: Why is it important to have an International Year of Cooperatives?

A: The U.N. designates international years to draw attention to major issues and to encourage action on matters or concerns that have global importance.

In this case, the IYC will highlight the contributions of cooperatives to socioeconomic development. In declaring the IYC, the U.N. seeks to help raise awareness of these contributions. The IYC also seeks to promote the growth of cooperatives as an important business model that can be leveraged for development.

Q: What are the characteristics or principles that define a cooperative?

A: Cooperatives are member-owned economic enterprises and self-help organisations which play an important role in improving the socioeconomic conditions of their members and their local communities.

Self-help, social responsibility and equality, democratic and participatory approach and concern for community – these are some of the values and principles that underlie cooperatives. Through their adherence to principles aligned with the common good, they contribute to social integration and cohesion and the well being of society at large.

Q: The theme for the International Year of Cooperatives is "Cooperative enterprises build a better world". How can cooperatives create a better world?

A: Cooperatives create, improve and protect the income and employment of their members and contribute to poverty reduction. Cooperatives support and promote small and medium enterprises in many sectors.

As people-centred businesses, cooperatives help promote social cohesion and inclusion. With their participatory and democratically based approach, cooperatives help empower women, youth, people with disabilities, older persons and indigenous peoples, thus promoting an inclusive society. These are all factors that help create a better world.

Finally, the world today faces unstable financial systems and increased food insecurity, growing inequality and rapid climate change and environment degradation. Cooperatives offer a compelling model of economic enterprise that is relevant for today's challenges.

Q: Cooperatives usually work at a very restricted and local level. Do you think cooperatives have a role in the achievement of the U.N. 's Millennium Development Goals?

A: Cooperatives have a role in helping the global community achieve the Millennium Development Goals. We know cooperatives that help in poverty reduction and in employment generation. Cooperatives employ more than 100 million people worldwide. The largest 300 cooperatives in the world alone have an aggregate turnover of 1.1 trillion dollars.

In many parts of the world, worker cooperatives, dairy and agricultural cooperatives improve the livelihoods of members. Agricultural cooperatives play an important role in the production and distribution of food supply, which helps food security.

In addition, cooperatives strengthen local and regional economies. Because cooperatives are owned by members, a significant portion of their income stays local, supporting other local businesses and generating tax revenues for the community.

It is also noteworthy that many cooperatives allocate a certain portion of their revenues to community projects like schools and health facilities. While the MDGs are global objectives, cooperatives operating locally are strongly contributing to meet those objectives.

Q: Has the U.N. given proper support to cooperatives worldwide?

A: The U.N. has been promoting cooperatives for many years and recognises the contributions of cooperatives to the U.N. development agenda. At the Social Summit in Copenhagen in 1995, the role of cooperatives in a people-centred approach to socio-economic development was underscored.

The U.N. Guidelines of 2001 and the International Labour Organisation Recommendation No. 193 of 2002 on the promotion of cooperatives have served to guide cooperative formation. These mechanisms encourage governments to provide an enabling environment and level playing field for cooperatives to compete alongside other types of businesses.

In 2012, the U.N.'s IYC will give visibility to cooperatives and highlight their contributions to society. The U.N. seeks to generate more support for facilitating and improving the international and regional collaboration of cooperatives.

Furthermore, we hope the IYC will promote an effective dialogue among governments, the cooperative movement, academia and other stakeholders that will identify strategies and priorities towards a plan of action beyond 2012.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=105650

Redesigning Urban Landscapes with People at the Centre

José Domingo Guariglia interviews NATÁLIA GARCIA, creator of the project Cidades para Pessoas

Credit: Courtesy of Natália Garcia

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 13, 2011 (IPS) - In May 2011, Brazilian journalist Natália Garcia decided to spend one year travelling to different cities around the world to better understand how to make urban landscapes more liveable for inhabitants.

She called her project Cidades para Pessoas (Cities for the People), and the 12 cities in her itinerary were chosen by Danish architect Jan Gehl, responsible for the new urban structure of Copenhagen, also known as "the city of the bicycles".

Garcia has already visited Copenhagen, Amsterdam, London, Paris and Lyon, and through May 2012 she will be travelling to Barcelona, Sydney, Melbourne, San Francisco, New York, Portland and Mexico City.

According to the World Bank, 51 percent of the world's population lived in cities in 2010. In some regions, this percentage was above 70 percent, such as in Latin America and the Caribbean (79 percent) and Europe (74 percent). But along with growing urbanisation come problems like increased traffic and crime.

In an interview with IPS from Lyon, France, Garcia explained that the solution to improve quality of life in the cities consists of "putting people at the centre of public administration".

Funding the project was itself a collaborative initiative, consisting of a website, a blog and a Youtube channel. Garcia worked with the site Catarse, a "crowdfunding" initiative where people can present projects and call on others who may want to finance them.

IPS correspondent José Domingo Guariglia interviewed Garcia on her views regarding urbanism and how to develop Latin American cities in the context of crime, violence and lack of planning.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: Why did you create the project Cidades para Pessoas?

A: My interest in urban planning started with my personal life. I am from Sao Paulo, and when I was 18 years old I started to drive around the city. At 24, tired of spending four hours a day in the car, I bought a bike to get around the city. My relationship with Sao Paulo changed completely.

In 2008, I started doing some informal research about city issues, like urban planning and mobility. I started writing about those things, I participated in some journalistic projects that made me learn a lot, and I knew about the work of the Danish planner Jan Gehl. He was one of the first in the world to create the concept of "cities for the people".

I got in contact with him when I decided that I wanted to travel all over the world for one year, visiting 12 cities and living for one month in each of them, searching for ideas that have improved those cities for their people. The travel started on May 5, in Copenhagen, and I have already gone through Amsterdam, London, Paris, Strasburg, Freiburg and Lyon.

Q: Do you think the quality of life in Latin American cities can be improved even with their high rates of violence and criminality?

A: I am sure, but Latin American cities have some peculiar characteristics. They developed, to a great extent, after World War II, when cars were produced on a large scale through the world and were considered a status symbol.

We have cities made for cars, public transport services of poor quality, and disorganised growth, all of which lead to very poor neighbourhoods with people living without basic infrastructure.

I think violence and crime are a consequence of bad planning. Violence and crime happen when there are not equal opportunities for everyone.

In my opinion, the first step to alter this situation is putting the people at the centre of public administration. The main goal of the government is to make cities better places to live.

Bogota, in Colombia, is a proof that this change can be possible in a short period of time: in 15 years the city got a quality public transport system that reaches almost every neighbourhood, bike lines, revitalised squares, parks and open areas.

A city where people don't interact and live together is a city of enemies.

Q: In the list of cities there is only one from Latin America: Mexico City. Why?

A: In European cities I tried to understand the classic concepts of urban planning. European concepts can be important tools for Latin American cities. On the other hand, the informality and the focus on cars make the problems of Latin American cities more complex.

But some of the solutions studied in Europe are perfectly applicable, like urban agriculture as a tool to regulate the growth of the cities with "green belts", decentralisation to improve the work of local authorities, democratic participation in political decisions and civic engagement movements in cities.

I think the concepts learned in the project can be applied in Brazilian and Latin American cities if they are adapted to our reality.

Q: Some of the problems in big Brazilian cities are traffic and pollution. Do you think it is possible to promote the use of bicycles like in Copenhagen?

A: I think it is perfectly possible, but we have to realise that Brazilian cities have a different scale. Sao Paulo, for example, has more inhabitants than Denmark. So the key to promoting the use of bicycles in Sao Paulo relies on integrating bicycles with public transportation. We need bicycle parking near train stations, metro stations and buses.

Q: Cidades para Pessoas is also a blog and a Youtube channel where you reveal what you have done in these cities. What are you going to do with all this material once you complete the year of travel?

A: I have many plans. Presenting this to the Brazilian authorities is one of them. Putting together reports about how these ideas could be applied in Sao Paulo is another one. There are also some civic engagement strategies that I would like to promote among citizens.

Q: You have visited so far Copenhagen, Amsterdam, London and Paris. Which one has surprised you the most and why?

A: I think Copenhagen, because they clean their canals so that people can swim in them. This particular approach with the water is so far from the reality of Brazilian cities.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=105456

Expanding Technologies Fail to Bridge Broadband Divide

JOSÉ DOMINGO GUARIGLIA

UNITED NATIONS , Sep 29, 2011 (IPS) - Despite an overall increase in global internet usage and in the prevalence of information and communication technologies (ICTs), the gap between developing and developed countries remains vast when it comes to accessing broadband connections.

Known as the broadband divide, this gap underscores the many obstacles in the process to provide developing countries with access to information, even while on a global scale ICT development continues to improve.

"Measuring the Information Society 2011", this year's version of an annual report released by the U.N. agency International Telecommunication Union (ITU), compared accessibility, capabilities and cost of ICTs in developed and developing countries between 2008 and 2010.

Broadband access is indispensable to implementing e-government projects and meeting the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Gary Fowlie, head of the ITU liaison office, told IPS.

The MDGs are a set of eight goals to be accomplished by 2015 and include universal access to education, gender equality and female empowerment, improved child and maternal health, and reducing poverty and HIV/AIDS.

"Broadband will permit a greater use of the spectrum that allows e-health services, e-education, e- governance services. It makes it possible to deliver health care by distance," Fowlie said. However, in many low-income countries, broadband remains unaffordable.

Increasing access to broadband will help countries meet the MDGs by making technology more affordable and widespread, Hamadoun Touré, ITU secretary-general, explained.

Greater global connectivity

The report's conclusions relied on the ICT Development Index (IDI), which gauges developments in uses and capabilities of ICTs in 152 countries, and the ICT Price Basket (IPB), which measures changes in prices of ICTs in 165 countries.

South Korea led countries in ICT development, with European countries taking eight out of the top 10 spots. For Fowlie, the explanation was simple. "South Korea has been a leader in broadband technology and many European countries have national broadband plans and mature regulatory systems. They have homogenous population in small lands," he told IPS.

He emphasized the importance of government regulation to ensuring that connectivity reached even remote areas, noting that allowing the private sector to control connectivity might create divisions between urban and rural areas or different genders and ages.

"The government can put some criteria in the delivery of the services… It is about good governance and regulatory oversight by the government," he added.

Developing countries were the ones that grew more in terms of access to and implementation of technologies. In fact, Africa had the highest mobile growth rate, but it was also the region with the lowest scores in the development index. The cost of technologies and the lack of interest on the part of authorities were the main causes of these disparities.

"The cost remains an issue and that's why it is important to have national broadband plans," said Fowlie, who recommended a strategy combining public access to technologies, an effective system of operating licenses and promoting investment by the private sector.

The report stated that income levels and ICT development are related, but experiences on the ground have shown that governmental action and promoting technologies can accelerate ICT development.

Such a phenomenon occurred in Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea, countries whose ICT development levels were higher than expected given their income levels.

The ICT price basket, which combines the average cost of fixed telephone lines, the cost of having a mobile phone and the price of broadband internet services, showed that the average price of ICT services has decreased by 18 percent globally between 2008 and 2010, and by even more in broadband internet services (52 percent).

The prevalence of mobile phones has increased in many developing countries where poor infrastructure limits the expansion of fixed telephone lines. In developed countries, mobile prevalence is higher than 100 percent.

The "mobile miracle" has provided the most disadvantaged people in the world with access to ICTs, Touré has said, noting that efforts to expand broadband internet accessibility should seek to emulate this success.

ICT in politics

Two previous world summits on the information society have taken place – one in Geneva in 2003 and another in Tunis in 2005.

After the last summit, which focused on internet governance, participating countries noted with satisfaction the "increasing use of ICT by governments to serve citizens and encourage countries that have not yet done so to develop national programmes and strategies for e-government".

The very principles to which these countries pledged their commitment at the summit are the same ones that have been tested with the latest revolutions and uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East.

Countries reaffirmed their "commitment to the freedom to seek, receive, impart and use information, in particular, for the creation, accumulation and dissemination of knowledge" and committed to "protect and respect the provisions for privacy and freedom of expression".

Yet governments like Tunisia and Egypt tried to block internet access during the protests in their respective countries, violating Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states everyone has the right "to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers".

These events have proved that despite disparities, trying to control or reduce the impact of ICTs in the world is no longer easy, Fowlie believed.

"The ICTs gave a way to share frustrations, and citizens could use that information to improve. Trying to control access to ICT is not so easy anymore. People are going to find a way."

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=105297

Groups Demand Ouster of Rights Violators from U.N. Bodies

JOSE DOMINGO GUARIGLIA

Global Summit Against Discrimination and Persecution

Photo Credit: Adam Nadler

United Nations, Sep 26, 2011 (IPS) - An international coalition of NGOs is pushing for countries that regularly violate human rights to be barred from U.N. agencies including the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHCR) and U.N. Women.

"We call on the United Nations to continue on the path of reform by suspending China, Cuba, Russia and Saudi Arabia from the UN Human Rights Council," stated an international coalition of NGOs in its "Declaration of Dissidents for Universal Human Rights."

The declaration served as the outcome document of the Global Summit Against Discrimination and Persecution, held in New York Sep. 21 and 22, as a side event of the U.N. General Assembly.

In addition to the suspension of the four countries from UNHCR, NGOs also called for Iran to be eliminated from the Commission on the Status of Women and Saudi Arabia to be expelled from the executive board of U.N. Women.

In the past, human rights defenders have succeeded in excluding Libya, Iran and Syria from UNHCR, even as some believe that the international community has failed to act unanimously against human rights violators.

"Tragically, the governments who are the members of the Council… failed in their mandate to protect human rights worldwide. There has never been a resolution (against China). China is a member of the Security Council. It is upside down," Hillel Neuer, executive director of U.N. Watch, told IPS.

In other instances, Libya was elected chair of the Human Rights Commission in 2003 and Gaddafi's regime was a member of the Human Rights Council before its suspension in February 2011.

David Keyes, executive director of Advancing Human Rights, another NGO that sponsored the summit, said that the United Nations "has lost much of its effectiveness and its impact has been diminished by allowing some of the worst human rights violators in the world to set the agenda".

Meanwhile, doubts remain about the motivations of many NGOs that participated in the event.

U.N. Watch, the primary organiser of the summit, is affiliated with the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and has been very active in combating perceived anti-Israel positions in the U.N.

It has also been a strong critic of UNHCR. According to James Paul, executive director of Global Policy Forum, the view they promote is strong in Washington and is aligned with Israel policy.

"This is a highly politicized view of how human rights have to be pursued in the world. We should be suspicious of what the motivations of this conference were, who was organizing it and for what purpose," Paul told IPS.

"It is a completely unbalanced way of understanding how human rights have to be defended in the world and what the U.N. is all about and why is it important for the U.N. to be a universal institution," he added.

Paul believed that the effectiveness of the Human Rights Council would not improve with the elimination of certain members. At the same time, he pointed out the absence of some important human rights organizations at the event.

"Where is Amnesty? Where is Human Rights Watch? Where is the International Federation? The absence of those organizations at this event tells us something. I think this was a movement to discredit the Human Rights Council and the U.N. more generally in a time when the Palestinians are coming up with their proposals," he said.

Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have been very critical of Israeli actions, particularly in the West Bank.

Also part of the debate was the issue of U.N. reform, especially in the Security Council, whose five permanent members have veto power: China, Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom and France.

For Hillel Neuer, reforming the Security Council would not guarantee change in human rights policy, and eliminating veto power would be unrealistic and useless.

"In the real world, you want to have the major powers at the table and that is what the Security Council wanted to reflect. I don't think it will be easy to remove the veto power," Neuer said.

Paul, who is in favour of reforming the Security Council and eliminating both the veto and permanent seats, says the best way to organise a reformed Council is on a regional basis.

Chinese dissident and founder of Initiatives for China, Yang Jianli, believed that the voting power of a member state and the possibility of vetoing resolutions "should be linked to and based on the degree of democracy in the country".

"China has led the world for over 60 years in jailing dissidents, independent scholars and journalists, fringing on freedoms of press, religion and association, but the world leaders seem unable or unwilling to do anything about it," Yang told IPS.

Yang was arrested in 2002, sentenced to five years of prison for allegedly spying and subjected to torture multiple times.

The U.N. has the mechanisms, through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights treaties, "to apply pressures on various governments, especially the members of the UN Human Rights Council", Yang said.

According to Neuer, NGOs like U.N. Watch play an important role in addressing the demands of the victims of human rights violations and must push for the enforcement of rules and policies against them.

"They [NGOs] have to be the voice of the principles, of truth. We have to plant the seed of what is just and what is right and let the world events take their course. China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Russia should be removed. It is the right thing to do," he said.

But for Paul, this polarization between good and bad countries is not the right answer to the problem of the protection of human rights, especially in times when there are international interventions in Libya and possibly in Syria, that according to him, respond to "western economic aspirations".

"We regret human rights abuses, but the idea that we have to expel certain countries and decide between good guys and bad guys brings us back to a kind of cold war conception of what is going on," he concluded.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=105249

"Things Are Bound to Change in China"

José Domingo Guariglia interviews advocate for the Uyghur people, REBIYA KADEER

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Uyghur American Association

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 19, 2011 (IPS) - Before 1999, she was best known as the richest woman in China. Her business empire included a trading firm, real estate investments and a department store, putting her among the top 10 wealthiest individuals in the Asian nation.

Today, Rebiya Kadeer is a political exile in Washington who works full-time defending the cause of the Uyghur people, one of the 55 national minorities in China.

The dramatic change in her life came in 1999 when she was imprisoned by the government and sentenced to eight years in jail for allegedly revealing "state secrets" to the United States. She was released in 2005 after a campaign organised by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, and following the intervention of the George W. Bush administration in the U.S.

Since then, she has been working with the Uyghur American Association.

"I realised that I had to challenge the Chinese government's treatment of Uyghur people after the massacre of Uyghurs in February 1997. At that time, I realised that Chinese leaders were not interested in improving the lives and in respecting the human rights of the Uyghur people," she told IPS.

Nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, Kadeer has been accused several times by the Chinese government of instigating riots organised by opposition groups, and in particular the Uyghurs, Muslims located in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, one of the most important because of its rich natural resources.

Uyghurs have expressed concern about the immigration of Han Chinese people in their territory and efforts to destroy their language and their whole culture.

To publicise the situation of the Uyghur people, Kadeer will participate at the Global Summit Against Discrimination and Persecution Sep. 21-22 next to U.N. headquarters in New York.

The conference will produce draft resolutions on genocide, torture, discrimination, and the systematic violation of civil, religious and political freedoms.

IPS correspondent José Domingo Guariglia interviewed Kadeer to talk about her expectations for the summit, the situation in China, and how the United Nations can intervene to guarantee the respect of human rights.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: Why did you decide to participate in the Global Summit Against Discrimination and Persecution?

A: The reason is because the Uyghur people, including me, suffered persecution and discrimination under the six-decade rule of the Chinese Communist Party. I am highly sympathetic to all oppressed peoples around the world who have been persecuted and discriminated by authoritarian countries like China. I want to stand with them and support their peaceful struggles for freedom and human rights.

Not only the governments but also the long-suffering peoples will pay attention to this very important summit. I am sure the authoritarian countries will pay even more attention.

Q: The event is being organised by a coalition of NGOs and you were released from prison in 2005 because of the active campaign for your liberation put up by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. What's the role of non-governmental organisations in the defence of human rights?

A: NGOs play an extremely important role in shaping human rights debates and policies of many Western governments and in pressuring authoritarian states to respect the fundamental human rights of oppressed peoples. My release is an example of the excellent work of human rights organisations. I cannot but thank all the human rights organisations for pressuring China to release me and other political prisoners.

Q: Do you think reform of the U.N. Security Council and the elimination of the veto power could boost the protection of human rights in countries like China, Pakistan, Syria or Libya?

A: Yes. A reform at the U.N. Security Council is needed because it has become a weak international body in the protection of human rights in countries like China.

Q: One of the petitions of the organisers of the summit is to ban nations like China, Iran and Saudi Arabia from U.N. bodies that regulate basic freedoms. Do you think it will be possible?

A: I believe all dictatorial and repressive states should be banned from all bodies which regulate basic freedoms at the U.N. Their presence at such bodies is incompatible to the way they rule their own countries. The U.N. will only lose its credibility by allowing such authoritarian regimes to be on the boards of such bodies.

Q: The panel sessions will also include the topic of the "Arab Spring" and the events that took place in Tunisia and Egypt. Are the conditions favourable in China for something similar to occur?

A: I believe the conditions are soon going to be favourable in China in light of the heavy-handed repression of the Chinese authorities against Chinese democrats, Uyghurs and Tibetans and all those who are not happy with China's communist rule. Things are bound to change in China whether the Chinese Communist Party is willing to do it or not. It is just a matter of time.

The Chinese Communist Party cannot stop the legitimate demands of the Uyghur, Tibetan and the Chinese people for freedom, human rights and democracy.

Q: Why does the Chinese government refer to Uyghur people as terrorists?

 

A: Because Uyghurs believe in Islam. It is a convenient cover for the Chinese authorities to deceive the international community on the nature of Uyghur's struggle and justify its brutal repression against the peaceful Uyghur people.

The Chinese government has to stop its brutal treatment of Uyghurs, Tibetans and Chinese and allow them to live with human dignity and without fear.

I'd like to ask the Chinese government to initiate a genuine dialogue to peacefully resolve the political status of East Turkestan (Xinjiang). But I am not sure if the current Chinese leadership has the political will to initiate such dialogue. Their heavy-handed approach to resolve the Uyghur problem has failed.

Labelling Uyghur dissent as terrorism and launching attacks on peaceful Uyghurs will never create the conditions for peace and stability or the harmonious society championed by Chinese President Hu Jintao.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=105159