Welcome to the Remix, as we take our latest spin around the economy.
This Remix column covers the US national “Co-op Impact” conference, which is hosted by the National Cooperative Business Association-Cooperative League of the USA in Washington, DC. This year’s gathering, held in October, a month before the US national elections, considered the role of co-ops as they prepare to meet the opportunity provided by the United Nations decision to designate 2025 to be the International Year of the Cooperative.
At the conference, a few key themes emerged. One was a focus on the international nature of the co-op movement. This year’s national conference featured an unusual number of speakers from outside the United States, including both Canadian and many Latin American speakers. The international speakers emphasized the need to have a view of the co-op movement that is embedded in a broader social economy, that invests in co-op education (especially for youth), and in which there is substantial investment in the development of new cooperatives.
A related theme was on how US co-ops might adopt their practices based on the experiences shared from international co-op sector leaders. One presentation focused on the possibility that established co-ops in the United States might choose to invest in a common fund to boost development of new cooperatives. Investment mechanisms of this type presently exist in countries outside the United States; the possibility that such a mechanism might be developed in the United States is intriguing, although still a theoretical possibility.
At the conference, ideas too were shared of how co-ops might use the UN designation to both help themselves (by increasing co-op visibility) and, perhaps, contribute to the UN sustainable development goals. There was also, at times, discussion of how co-op development can expand in the United States. The US co-op contribution to the economy is in the hundreds of billions of dollars a year, but it is nowhere close to the 15 percent of GDP that co-ops in the Canadian province of Quebec contribute to their economy. At the conference, one speaker offered the audacious goal to quintuple the number of worker co-ops in the next three years.
In reading this article, I encourage you to consider the state of the US co-op movement—and how to sustain and build upon current efforts.
Until the next Remix column, I remain
Your Remix Man:
Steve Dubb
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