Under the slogan Cooperatives for Sustainable Development, the more than one billion co-operatives around the world will celebrate their International Day this year on July 1st, an event that has united the cooperative movement for a century. We are taking the opportunity to organise an international conference to show how cooperatives are the best tool for building a better future, sustainable development for all.
The international conference that we will be holding on July 1st in Donostia is the starting signal and the crossroads of other major international events. On July 1st, Spain’s Presidency of the European Union begins, and the Tour de France kicks off with a first stage in Bilbao that will reach Donostia on July 2nd. This year is also a key year for the United Nations 2030 Agenda. In September the UN is organising a summit to review its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and provide high-level political guidance on transformative actions to accelerate their achievement.
Cooperativism, a pioneering model for sustainable developmet
At the halfway point of the 2030 Agenda, efforts need to be deepened, and this can only be done with more cooperation. Cooperatives have a model for doing so, and have been demonstrating this for 200 years. The cooperative movement is a forerunner of sustainable development, it is part of our DNA. The term was already part of the cooperative principles (the Seventh) in 1995, 20 years before the UN coined the 2030 Agenda in 2015.
And we will be meeting in the Basque Country, one of the regions with the least inequalities in Europe and with the highest density of cooperatives, to confirm the core idea: more co-operatives, less inequalities. From the local level, cooperativists are building a better world. We co-operatives can say it loud and clear, and the time is now.
The conference ‘Cooperatives for sustainable development’ is part of the events of the Capital of the Social Economy of Donostia 2023.
This conference will take place on July 1st at the Donostia-San Sebastian City Hall and will include six round tables at which representatives from different organisations from different countries around the world will discuss the relationship between the cooperative movement and each of the Sustainable Development Goals, from the first to the 17th.
The Conference ‘Cooperatives for Sustainable Development’ is organised by Kooperatiben Kontseilua, International Cooperative Alliance, Konfekoop , Coceta and Ministry of Labour and Social Economy.
Program and registration
Registration to follow the event COOPSDAY PROGRAM.
