International Cooperative Alliance
| Company type | Cooperative federation |
|---|---|
| Industry | activities of other membership organisations n.e.c. cooperative movement |
| Founded | 1895 |
| Headquarters | , |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Ariel Guarco, President Jeroen Douglas, Director General |
| Members | more than 300 organisations |
| Website | www.ica.coop |
The International Cooperative Alliance (ICA), established in 1895, is a non-governmental organization dedicated to uniting, representing, and supporting cooperatives around the world. It is the guardian of the internationally recognized definition, values, and principles of cooperatives, as outlined in the ICA Statement on the Cooperative Identity. Today, the ICA represents 315 cooperative federations and organizations across 107 countries.
Functioning as a global platform, the ICA promotes collaboration among cooperatives by enabling the exchange of knowledge, sharing of expertise, and coordination of joint initiatives. Its diverse membership includes both international and national cooperative organizations operating across various sectors, such as:
- Agriculture
- Banking
- Consumer goods
- Fisheries
- Health
- Housing
- Insurance
- Industry and services
The ICA has members from over 100 countries, representing approximately one billion individuals worldwide.
At the United Nations, the ICA engages in high-level discussions on cooperative-related issues through its consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), a status it has held since 1946 as the first non-governmental organization to do so. The ICA also has individual partnership agreements with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Labour Organization (ILO), and participates in the UN Inter-Agency Task Force on Social and Solidarity Economy (UNTFSSE). Since 1971, the ICA has been a founding member of the Committee for the Promotion and Advancement of Cooperatives (COPAC), a UN multi-stakeholder partnership of global public and private institutions that promotes and advocates for people-centred, self-sustaining cooperative enterprises, guided by the principles of economic, social and environmental sustainable development.
Since 2014, the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) has actively participated in the G20 Engagement Groups, with representatives involved in various taskforces and contributing to discussions and the development of official documents. In 2020, the ICA established the Cooperative G20 Working Group to ensure that the perspectives of the cooperative movement are effectively represented within the G20 process. This group plays a vital role in drafting policy papers, background materials, and advocacy documents, highlighting the cooperative sector’s engagement and its contributions to addressing the key issues discussed at the G20 Summit.
In 2006 the ICA published the first major index of the world's largest cooperative and mutual enterprises, the ICA Global 300, which demonstrated the scale of the cooperative movement globally. Since 2011, together with European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises (EURICSE), the ICA Global 300 has evolved into the World Cooperative Monitor, a project designed to collect robust economic, organizational, and social data about cooperatives worldwide. The publication reports on the world's largest cooperatives and mutuals, or groups of cooperatives and mutuals, including rankings of the Top 300 and sectoral analysis. Since 2018, each edition has also a thematic focus, in 2022 it was dedicated to the digitalization and the cooperative identity.
The ICA created in 2018 the International Cooperative Entrepreneurship Think Tank (ICETT) to boost cooperatives' entrepreneurial performance. Through innovative ideas, research, education, and cooperation, its members address the global challenges that cooperative enterprises are facing today.
On the first Saturday of July each year, the ICA coordinates celebrations of International Day of Cooperatives.
In December 2009, the United Nations declared 2012 as the International Year of Cooperatives.
The ICA launched its 2020-2030 Strategic Plan, named "A People-Centred Path to a Second Cooperative Decade", based on the earlier Blueprint for a Cooperative Decade, and providing strategic guidance to the ICA and its bodies for the (2020-2030) decade. This Strategic Plan is based on 22 months of preparatory work, including two surveys with the whole ICA membership, two consultations with the ICA bodies (Regions, Sectoral Organizations, Thematic Committees and Youth Network) and several days of meetings and written consultations within the ICA Board.