What is COPAC ?

What is COPAC and what are its aims? -- Who are its members? -- What types of activities does it carry out?

Its aim is to promote and coordinate cooperative development initiatives through,

• POLICY COORDINATION

COPAC promotes cooperation and collaboration among its member and partner organizations in analyzing policy issues with a view to developing pragmatic approaches and strategies for the promotion and advancement of cooperatives.

One of it major accomplishments have been its collaboration with the United Nations that led to the adoption of the United Nations guidelines aimed at creating a supportive environment for the development of cooperative in 2001. COPAC held a number of expert group meetings, provided input and comments to the United Nations' draft and mobilised awareness on the initiative. See Guidelines for further information.

COPAC members also provided input to the International Labour Office during the review of ILO Recommendation 127 which was supplanted by a new Recommendation - No. 193 on the Promotion of Cooperatives adopted in June 2002.

• INFORMATION EXCHANGE

COPAC regroups and disseminates information among COPAC members and other interested organizations concerning member activities, their technical cooperation programmes, and more general legal and policy changes affecting cooperative development.

• ADVOCACY

COPAC plays an advocacy role in support of cooperatives as institutions which organize self-help, promote solidarity and mobilize resources in order to further the economic and social development of their members. For example, COPAC annually celebrates the United Nations International Day of Cooperatives by focusing attention on particular themes of importance to cooperatives. For example, for the 2nd UN International Day of Cooperatives (6 July, 1996) COPAC issued a message calling on the UN and its member states to forge partnerships with the cooperative movement to implement the commitments made at the World Summit on Social Development, the Fourth World Conference on Women and Habitat II. On the 3rd UN International Day of Cooperatives, COPAC organized an exhibit at the United Nations Office in Geneva (Switzerland) to focus attention on the work of its members and the successes of the cooperative movement. For the 4th UN International Day of Cooperatives, COPAC members contributed materials of the theme of the Day, "Contribution of Cooperatives to Food Security." In 1999, COPAC highlighted the importance of legislation and administrative provisions in the 5th UN International Day of Cooperatives on the theme, "Public Policy and Cooperative Legislation". Since then, COPAC has focused attention on how cooperatives are contributing to a number of important issues. In 2000, the 6th International Day of Cooperatives showed how cooperatives promoted employment, the 7th celebration explained and demonstrated the "cooperative advantage", while the 8th put forward the Co-operative Principle of Concern for Community. In 2003, COPAC chose to highlight the significant contributions that cooperatives are making to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals under the theme, "Co-operatives Make Development Happen!" and in 2004 it focused on how cooperatives promote fair globalization. while in 2005 it linked to thee UN International Year of Microcredit and featured the theme, "Microfinance is our business: Cooperating out of poverty". The theme of the 2006 International Day of Cooperatives was, "Peace-Building through Cooperatives".

• MEETINGS AND OTHER SERVICES

COPAC provides a variety of services to its members and to those interested in cooperative development to achieve its aims. These include an information and publication service, the organization of meetings, consultations and 'Open Fora' and conducting research. The 2004 COPAC Open Forum focused on the contribution of cooperatives to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and featured presentations from the World Bank, cooperative representatives, UN agencies and farmers' organizations. A joint ILO-COPAC publication will be shortly be issued on the theme and a report of the meeting is currently being prepared. In 2005, the issue of the issue of Fair Trade and the relationship of Fair Trade organisations and cooperatives was examined.

• FUNDING

The COPAC Secretariat and its activities are funded by members´ contributions. In addition, financial or in-kind support for the specific informational and research activities including meetings has been provided by various organizations. However, COPAC itself, is not a funding source for cooperative development.

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Comments or questions? Contact the COPAC Coordinator.

Updated: 1 June 2007