Cooperatives, now is the time
The Spanish Confederation of Worker Cooperatives will host the World Cooperativism Meeting in Seville.
After passing through South Korea, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Canada or Argentina, international cooperativism is meeting up in Seville to hold a packed meeting, reviewing the model and positioning itself against the challenges of the future that a world in crisis presents. Over 600 people from around one hundred countries will visit Seville between the 19th and the 22nd of June, where they will share a programme full of activities, workshops and meetings… all brought together under the slogan ‘Cooperatives, now is the time.’
This world meeting of cooperatives has been organised by the Spanish Confederation of Worker Cooperatives, COCETA, with the collaboration of the Fundación Espriu and the other Spanish organisations associated to the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA). In addition to this, the Ministry of Work and Social Economy, the Government of Andalusia and the City Council of Seville are working as institutional collaborators, supporting a business model, the cooperative, which generates greater social cohesion, beats work insecurity, is more sustainable, equalitarian and democratic, putting people at the centre, without giving up on profitability, but eschewing the maxim: ‘profit for profit’s sake.’
A key formula
The debate sessions will centre on showing how the public policies for promoting cooperativism are encouraging the development of this business formula that is essential in the current recovery context. Within this framework, the electoral assembly of the ICA will be held, in which its presidency and the composition of its management board will be renewed.
COCETA, which has relied on the collaboration of its associate in the region to optimise the organisation, the Andalusian Federation of Work Cooperatives (FAEC-TA in its Spanish initials), will have two work sessions in which different experts from the world of the cooperative company, social economy or the university, will offer their responses as to why the current moment is favourable for cooperatives to flex their muscles and champion, thanks to their social and economic view, the challenges to build a future in the direction of cooperative values and principles.
