The International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) under the auspices of the Government of Rwanda and the ICA-EU Partnership on Cooperatives in Development (#Coops4Dev) is organizing its global conference on ‘Cooperatives for Development’ in Kigali, Rwanda from October 14-17.
Participants from 90 countries are expected to attend the conference to learn, share, advocate, and showcase cooperatives’ contributions to the SDGs.
Meanwhile, more than three dozen Indian participants have left for Rwanda to become a part of the event. The majority of participants are from fertilizer cooperative IFFCO which is a member of ICA Board. IFFCO’s entire board is there including new board members such as Ovr Ramachandran and Sadhana Jhadav.
NCUI President Chandra Pal, its Vice-Chairman G H Amin, its CE N Satyanarayan, Kribhco Director and Biscomaun Chairman Sunil Kumar Singh are some of the other prominent participants. Nandini Azad, who is Chairperson of Women Committee of ICA AP has also gone to Kigali.
ICA also has several committees on different themes, which are also meeting on the occasion. In a mail to Indian Cooperative Nandini writes “First of it’s kind workshop in world”. She chaired the ICA AP women’s committee meeting along with JCCU and RD reviewing the activities for the region and planning new initiatives, her mail claimed.
She also informed that the GEC chair and committee paid homage to the legendary cooperator late Jaya Arunachalam with a moment’s silence and mentioned her inspiring work saying she will continue to inspire millions worldwide in the cooperative sector.
The four-day event will feature good practice presentations from co-operators and experts in the field of development as well as keynote speeches. The results of the ICA’s work regarding the contributions of co-operatives to the SDGs will also be presented.
ICA president Ariel Guarco said the conference aimed to boost international recognition of the co-operative movement and reinforce its role as a key player in sustainable development.
Rwanda, quite like the global cooperative movement, symbolizes resilience, and has for the past few decades worked successfully towards reconstructing its economic and social fabric, and on ethnic reconciliation; thus serving as an ideal location for a conference focusing on sustainable development, reads a mail from ICA.
The Keynote Address will be delivered by Dr. Vandana Shiva, who is a globally renowned authority on ecological and social issues. Dr Shiva will be talking about how “cooperatives help to achieve a more solidarity-based and participatory society?”
The conference has been structured around plenary sessions, sectoral and thematic seminars, and discussion panels among other activities. It will be open to cooperators worldwide, but also to other civil society actors, development agencies, policy makers, institutional partners, government representatives, researchers, and all those who are concerned about development.
