Cooperatives in Social Development

Encourages all Member States, as well as the United Nations and all other relevant stakeholders, to share best practices identified through activities implemented during the International Year of Cooperatives and to continue those activities, as appropriate;

Invites Governments and international organizations, in partnership with cooperatives and cooperative organizations, to strengthen and build the capacity of all forms of cooperatives, especially those run by the poor, young people, women, persons with disabilities and other vulnerable groups, so that they can empower people to transform their lives and communities positively and build inclusive societies;

Invites Governments to strengthen efforts to enhance food security and nutrition and to focus efforts on smallholders and women farmers, as well as on agricultural cooperatives and farmers’ networks, supported by measures to improve access to markets, enable domestic and international environments and strengthen collaboration across the many initiatives in this area, including regional initiatives;

Encourages Governments to promote access to information and communications technologies as a vital channel for collaboration and the expansion of cooperatives, especially in rural areas;

Also encourages Governments to intensify and expand the availability and accessibility of research on the operations and contribution of cooperatives and to establish methodologies for the collection and dissemination of comparable global data on and the best practices of cooperative enterprises, in collaboration with all stakeholders, and to raise public awareness of the linkages between cooperatives and sustainable development, especially in the areas of social inclusion, employment creation, poverty eradication and peacebuilding;

Invites Governments, relevant international organizations, the specialized agencies and local, national and international cooperative organizations to continue to observe the International Day of Cooperatives annually, on the first Saturday of July, as proclaimed by the General Assembly in its resolution 47/90;

Invites Governments, in collaboration with the cooperative movement, to develop programmes aimed at enhancing the capacity-building of cooperatives, including by strengthening the organizational, management and financial skills of their members, while respecting the principles of gender equality and the empowerment of women, and to introduce and support programmes to improve the access of cooperatives to new technologies;

Requests the Secretary-General, in cooperation with the relevant United Nations and other international organizations and national, regional and international cooperative organizations, to continue rendering support to Member States, as appropriate, in their efforts to create a supportive environment for the development of cooperatives, integrating cooperative values, principles and business models into educational programming, including school curricula, as appropriate, providing assistance for human resources development, technical advice and training and promoting an exchange of experience and best practices through, inter alia, conferences, workshops and seminars at the national and regional levels, within existing resources;

Also requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly at its seventy-second session a report on the implementation of the present resolution.