Why are Co-operatives Important?

The co-operative movement today is a large and complex movement. One reason is their size: according to the United Nations, co-operatives provide important services to three billion people, or one half of the world’s population. Internationally, the co-operatives associated with the International Co-operative Alliance in Geneva, have nearly 800,000,000 members. The largest 300 co-operatives in the world have annual turnovers of $1,000 Billion (USD), almost the same as the Gross National Product of Canada, whose economy is one of the ten largest in the world. Collectively, they employ 20% more people than multinational firms in the world today. Within Canada there are 16,000,000 members in 9,000 co-operatives with assets of over $225,000,000,000. [For more information on Canadian co-operatives, visit the Co-op Secretariat, the Canadian Co-operative Association and the Conseil Canadien de la Coopération]. The sheer size of the movement, arguably the largest social movement in the world, is reason enough to warrant its study within educational institutions, among members and interested persons, and as governments develop their economic and social programmes.

Co-operatives are also important because of their versatility and multiple purposes. They have been developed and they have flourished because of their capacity to meet the needs of people in very diverse circumstances. Thus, at any given time and in most societies, people can choose to use the co-operative model to meet emerging needs. Today, for example, people around the world are using co-operatives to provide services, notably social services, that the state cannot or does not choose to provide: for example, health services, some kinds of services for the elderly or for people with disabilities. Others have started to use the co-operative model for the production and processing of organic food or the expansion of ethical trade. Others are organizing housing co-ops to meet needs poorly met by the conventional market place or because they wish to form a specific kind of community. Still others find the co-operative model useful in mobilizing human and financial capital in order to create jobs for themselves.

Co-operatives are important because they are a way in which people can more fully achieve their potential as human beings.